
Class 
Book 



ii 



Mz^ 



GcpightK" 



COPSHrOHT DEPOSnt 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 
BY STEPHEN HASBROUCK 






Copyright 1911 

by 

THE BURNETT PUBLISHING COMPANY 

All rt£:hts reserved 



Published February, 1911 



In Cloth Binding, - $1.50 per Volume 
Extra Binding, - - $2.00 per Volume 



©CI,A2'J23i9 



To my friend, my helpmeet, my wife, whose 
companionship has gladdened and enriched my 
life, and whose love and loyalty the passing years 
have touched only to deepen and make more ten- 
der and gracious, this volume is here affection- 
ately inscribed. 



THE AUTHOR'S FOREWORD 

'T' HERE is little in the pages of this hook to gratify a mere 
^ curiosity as to the personality of the author and why he 
was attracted to the subject. It is pre-eminently an instance 
where the message which the hook is intended to convey is the 
matter of supremest concern. What moots it, then, whether 
this hook has been a pleasant pastime in a busy life or a task 
which has so glorified the day as to remove all sense of fatigue 
and to fill the soul of the writer with stirring^ inspirations far 
beyond his power to body forth in words; what matters it 
whether the bearer he robed in homespun or broadcloth so long 
as the hook which he brings to you is very much worth reading f 

John Ruskin, speaking of books in ''Sesame and Lilies/' 
makes this observation : "Whatever bit of a wise man's work 
is honestly and benevolently done, that hit is his work or piece 
of art. It is always mingled with fragments ill-done, with re- 
dundant or affected work. But if you read rightly you will 
easily discover the true hits, and these are the book." 

Should my work prove to he ill-done in any particular, it is 
from no lack of earnest endeavor to avoid the faults that 
Ruskin has pointed out. There may he chaff in the book. 
Nevertheless, I am convinced that there is also plenty of wheat 



/ 



to be found among it, and good wheat, too; and if so, let me 
ask that you zvill take pains to sift out the wheat and throw 
the chaff away. 

Victor Hugo, one of the most versatile and fluent of writers, 
once said, after half a century spent in giving expression to his 
thoughts in prose, verse, history, romance, satire and song, "I 
feel that I have not said the thousandth part of what is in me." 

I am conscious of having succeeded but imperfectly in con- 
veying to the reader all that has stirred within me concerning 
the subjects discussed in the following pages. In my endeavor 
to do justice to the transcendent issues zvith which the book 
deals, language has seemed to halt perplexed for lack of words 
to suitably convey to others the great thoughts to which I fain 
zvould give fitting expression. I have only skirted the shores 
of a mighty ocean of truth; merely outlined certain phases of 
what has seemed to me to be the real, the vital truth about 
things, judged from a scientific as well as a religious standpoint. 

George H. Hepworth once expressed his gratification that 
in one of his written works he had not made one statement 
which in any true sense could be called original. My task has 
been essentially one of fact-gathering. I make no claim to 
originality for what I have accomplished in this direction. I 
am content to leave the facts to speak for themselves, satisfied 
if only the reader be interested enough to study them carefully 
and to draiv the conclusions which they naturally suggest. 

■ This is an era when the world is feeling its need of God) 
These are days when everything is pointing souUward. At no 
time in its history has there been a more insistent inquiry as to 



whether there he a grain of certainty in those spiritual verities 
concerning God, the existence and immortality of the soul and 
kindred ideas which have been repeated from time immemorial. 
Nor is the demand less insistent that these inquiries which 
voice a soul-hunger shall he well and truly answered. 

I have tried to put into these pages that which will, in some 
measure at least, answer these inquiries, and so help to lead 
a few steps onward in the direction of the truth about matters 
of priceless value to our lives, both here and hereafter. 

If you read carefully I am persuaded that you will find in 
this hook a message of helpful import. If it brings aught of 
cheer and inspiration into your lives; if it will help you to 
the attainment of those higher ideals which you cherish; if it 
will stir you to /give to others the best that is in you;' to act, 
speak and live the truth, not counting the cost, then let me 
believe that you will not only accept this message for yourself, 
hut will pass it on to others, that thus the influence of this book 
for good may he multiplied a thousand- fold. 



ORDER AND VARIETY OF TOPICS. 



Part 



1 

CHAPTER PAGE 

The Author's Preface xiii 

I. The Jury of the Vicinage i 

II. Science Reaches the Borderland of Spirit 7 

III. Kinship With the Infinite 13 

IV. The Central Figure in History 16 

Jesus the Christ 23 

Jesus Christ the Supreme Personality 26 

A New Spring Time 29 

V. Theological Formulas 32 

VI. The Christianity of the New Testament 39 

VII. Jesus' Healing Ministry. 55 

VIII. Insufficiency of Material Remedies 66 

IX. Attitude of the Clergy Toward Christian Healing and 

i*-- Christian Science 76 



Part a 

CHAPTER page 

I. Jesus Christ and the Traditionalists 89 

II. A New Religious Order 99 

HI. The Founder of Christian Science .' no 

Some Personal Characteristics 118 

The Christian Science Text Book 121 

Inception of the Christian Science Church 126 

IV. The Christian Science Church System of Government 130 

V. Similarity Between the Primitive Christian Church 

AND Christian Science 142 

VI. Spread of the Movement 148 

xi 



J^art 3 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Materialism: The Bane 155 

II. Is Christian Science the Antidote? 

Its Teachings 168 

Its Healing Ministry 186 

Scientific Statement of Being 199 

III. Christian Science; Does It Conflict With the Bible? 209 

IV. The Old Order Changeth 227 



part 4 



chapter page 
I. Organized Christianity 

Some Facts and Considerations 241 

II. Organized Christianity ^ 

Existing Conditions and Outlook 259 

III. Church Unity : Is It Attainable ? 273 

IV. Organized Christianity: 

Its Alternatives As To Christian Science 295 

V. The Laymen's Missionary Movement 312 

VI. Humanity the Heir 341 

VII. The Infinite End 347 



THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
I. 

THE present age is pre-eminently one in which reverence 
for authority, both in the religious and the scientific 
realm, has greatly weakened, and to a large extent has already 
passed away. Accepted religious dogmas and scientific theories 
or hypotheses are being scrutinized as never before in the 
history of ages. There is a growing tendency to question or 
challenge^ much of that which we have been accustomed to 
regard as settled religious doctrine or scientifically proved 
facts. Beliefs are being tested in the crucible fires of our mod- 
ern publicity. 

There has been a destructive upheaval in Religion and 
Science and Philosophy as well, in which much of the work 
of learned theologians and equally learned scientists and phi- 
losophers have been repudiated or destroyed. Much of our 
theology has gone to the melting pot, and with it, too, has gone 
a great mass of materialistic theories and notions, for which 
thanks be. Materialism is fast becoming a back number. The 
creeds, dogmas and traditions of an antiquated ecclesiasticism 
and many of the afHrmations of the old theology no longer 
command the assent of men of the new school of thought. 
Old credal conceptions no longer harmonize with the advance- 
ment of science nor with the knowledge of historical develop- 
ment, or of philosophy and criticism. 

The old fear on the part of the theologians of the church, 
not that the scientist might be wrong, but that he might be 
right in his discoveries of the secrets of nature, is fast passing 



THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE 

away. The scientist, the geologist, the biologist, the astron- 
omer, the chemist, is no longer charged with rashness or pre- 
sumption in pursuing their investigations of objective phe- 
nomena. Let them go on making discoveries. Let them show 
more clearly how God works in nature. Let science continue 
its correction of the errors of material sense, undeterred by 
the anti-scientific instinct of the religionists, which is no longer 
hallowed as the cardinal virtue. 

The world is beginning to realize that God is speaking 
through two voices or through two channels, science and re- 
ligion; and that the truth which they both seek involves no 
contradiction. And if they seem not to be in harmony with 
each other, it is because we are not listening carefully, or 
because there are those who assume to speak in the name of 
religion or science, who are not His mouthpiece. 

The words of the Hving God are in both science and re- 
ligion. Science is giving up its mock belief in matter. Religion 
is learning the will of Heaven from within; science is learn- 
ing it from without. But it is the same voice to which they 
listen, the voice of Him who created the heaven and the earth 
and the fountains of waters, and who calls upon men every- 
where to worship and adore His great name. There was a 
time when the High Priests of Natural Science were building 
their altars to their unknown gods, but now Science and Faith 
may meet around a common altar of worship dedicated to the 
one only, true God. The spirit of genuine science is found to 
be the same as the spirit of genuine religion. Both scientist 
and theologian are beginning to understand that the truth 
which is the object of faith and the truth which is the object 
of science is one. For what is science but the search for 
truth and what is religion but the love of truth applied to 
practical life. 

Orthodoxy has been for too many years a fata morgana, 
"an unsubstantial vision which ever eludes our groping hand 



THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE 

and surrenders us to the illusions of blind sense." Nor should 
the institutional church longer remain a garden walled around 
to keep it from contact with the stream of human life which 
flows through and thrills the heart of man. The world be- 
lieves in God never more than now, but its God is not con- 
tained in a mere church formula. "It believes in the elemental, 
eternal, immutable things of everlasting righteousness," says 
the Universalist Leader, "but it only smiles incredulously when 
some self-appointed vicar of the Almighty prepares his map 
of the everlasting years and denounces those as unbelievers 
who will not travel toward the forever on his schedule." We 
are in the midst of a great revival of interest in religious ideas 
and beliefs. "Recent discussions and controversies have caught 
the ear of the man in the street," says the British Congrega- 
tionalist, "and has moved him to strike in and take a share. 
Theological reconstruction is becoming a familiar phrase." 

What is happening is not an outbreak of caprice, here and 
there, but a mental and moral revolution as resistless as the 
tide. The Christian Register has these forcible words from 
the pen of the Rev. J. C. Jayness, which have a significant con- 
nection with the foregoing: 

"A revolution is occurring in the social order such as the 
world has never seen before. A change is coming over the 
face of society, — a change in our conceptions of God and man, 
a change in our ideas of social responsibility, a change in our 
thinking in regard to the economic values of life. The church 
hears less of the intoning of the creed and more of the prayer, 
'Give us this chsy onr daily bread.* Everywhere there is upper- 
most a discontent with existing conditions and the feverish de- 
sire to improve them." 

Less and less are men disposed to bow down to their fellow 
men believing them to be the depositaries of divine inspiration. 
Orthodox Christianity and its priesthood are being put to the 
pragmatic test — "By their fruits ye shall know them." The 
giving of one's mere personal opinion in the guise of the tra- 



THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE 

ditional sermon is not reaching and holding the pubhc, nor is 
it accompHshing the purpose for which rehgious services are 
held. 

The Rev. Johnston ^Meyers, in a lecture delivered to a 
class of divinity students at the University of Chicago, makes 
this significant statement: "^lere preaching holds a minor 
place in the work of the church nowadays ; people are tired 
of it. This is not the age of the sermon." The Rev. Howard 
Allen Bridgman, of the Congregationalist, Boston, dealing 
with the same subject, declares: "the stern fact remains that 
our churches to-day do not appeal to men to that extent and 
that magnetic force that we could desire." 

In an article in the Atlantic Monthly a few years ago, Dr. 
Charles Cuthbert Hall dealt in trenchant fashion with the sub- 
ject of ministerial limitations. "Secure within the citadel of 
tradition," says he; "from its battlement, looking down over 
the non-conforming world, a man may have a ministerial idea 
which, like a spectre of Brocken, is only an enlarged and 
shadowy reproduction of himself." 

The time has come when science need no longer be pilloried 
in the name of religion or religion be denounced as supersti- 
tion. The traditional conception of science and religion as 
something to be sought in their externalities, is giving way to 
a better understanding of the real, the innermost spirit of 
each as Truth-seekers, Truth-finders and Truth-practicers. 
Science is becoming a Jacob's ladder which, as Dr. Paul Carus 
has felicitously said, "touches at its bottom the world of sense, 
while at its top it reaches the heaven of spirit." 

What, then, is the innermost meaning of these days? What 
of its foreshadowings and portents? Do they presage the 
coming in of a new-old religion which shall be new in the sim- 
plicity' of its adjustments to modern scientific ways of think- 
ing, and old in its grasp and possession of the essential, the 
elemental, the vital truths of the gospel of the New Testa- 



THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE 

ment ? Is the vision of the Brampton lecturer in the pulpit of 
St. Marys, Oxford, about to be realized? 

"I see the rise of a new religious order, the greatest that the 
world has known, drawn from all nations and classes, and, 
what seems stranger yet, from all churches." 

II. 

We hear much in these practical days of the pragmatist, 
and the pragmatic method. Pragmatism is that doctrine or 
philosophical system, whichever you may call it, which seeks 
the meaning of truth only in a pragmatic usefulness. Its dic- 
tum, in a nutshell, is that "that is true that works." Prag- 
matism implies that truth shall have practical consequences 
and that we may justly judge a tree by its fruits. It is in har- 
mony with the teachings of the New Testament. 

Christ Jesus was a pragmatist and measured religion by its 
fruits. He followed the pragmatic method in his answer to 
John the Baptist's inquiry concerning His claim to the Messiah- 
ship : "Art thou He that should come, or do we look for an- 
other?" The answer which John's messengers received from 
the Great Teacher and Demonstrator was couched in terms 
of practical experience. "Go and show John again those things 
which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and 
the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear; the 
dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to 
them." 

What a thing really is appears from what it does. Many a 
religious doctrine, many a political platform or philosophical 
system of more or less reasoned ideas, many a hypothesis 
evolved in the workshop of human conjecture, has seemed on 
paper to be all that a Plato, a Moore or a Bellamy could dream, 
but when subjected in human experience to a "destructive dose 
of facts" has shattered every hope which it inspired. Herbert 
Spencer once told Huxley that he had written a tragedy in his 



THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE 

youth. "I know the plot," said Huxley. "It was a beautiful 
theory that was slain by a wicked little fact." 

Rousseau, the idealistic reformer of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, made a new declaration of human rights, but it ended in 
the terrors and savageries of the French Revolution. What 
this age demands is a higher platform of human rights than 
that of Rousseau ; a platform built on diviner claims ; one that 
will deliver mankind from the slavery of false beliefs and so 
ultimate in the downfall of all tyranny and oppression. But 
to affirm whatever one pleases is no proof of understanding; 
the anarchist, the socialist, the visionary, can do this to his 
heart's content; so likewise can the blatant reformer or the 
political demagogue; nevertheless there is no certainty that 
harm will not dog their footsteps. The growth of knowledge 
may turn many an aphorism into either a platitude or a fallacy. 

"Most of the psychological literature of the day is waste 
paper," says Haeckel, the German scientist and philosopher. 
And what is true of psychology is true of the literature of 
human knowledge in general. The world is turning itself 
inside out so fast that most of our present text-books on 
science, theology, physiology and medicine, will soon find a 
place in that "Curio of Antiquities" which Professor James 
has so dehght fully instituted for outlived theories, dogmas, 
faiths and the bric-a-brac of human knowledge which has Ho 
further value except as relics of the past, and tokens whereby 
human progress may be measured. 

III. 

There are multiplied instances to show that not only the 
religious but the scientific temper of the age is becoming more 
devout. We want science, but we also want and need re- 
ligion. These two great forces should no longer remain an- 
tagonistic to each other. Their transforming power over the 
conditions of human life, when combined, is well nigh beyond 



THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE 

our present conception. Such union would bring an answer 
to the prayer of ages ; even the reaHzation of that divine ideal — 
the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man. 

Where, then, shall we look for a religion which is religious 
because it is of God and which is scientific because it is 
founded upon eternal Principle instead of human doctrines or 
blind faith, and which will meet human want in sickness as 
well as in health? We can find many a philosophical system 
which we may throw away because it is not religious enough. 
We may turn to scholastic theology, only to find that it is not 
empirical enough to suit the views and purposes of those with 
a fact-loving temperament. To use a phrase coined by Pro- 
fessor William James, 'There is that 'Rocky Mountain tough,' 
Haeckel, with his materialistic monism, his ether god and 
brutal jest at the Christian's God as a 'gaseous vertebrate.' 
And there is that materialistic philosopher, Herbert Spencer, 
treating the world's history as a redistribution of matter and 
motion, solely, but you will find both Haeckel and Spencer 
bowing religion politely out of the front door ; 'she may indeed 
continue to exist, but she must never show her face inside the 
temple.' " 

In what direction shall we turn to find a religion that is 
scientific enough to satisfy the man who wants facts, and 
which at the same time is religious enough to satisfy the man 
of feeling, emotion and Christian faith? Will a study of facts 
and conditions in the religious world of to-day disclose to our 
view that which will prove a happy harmonizer of empirical 
ways of things with the more reHgious demands of human 
beings? Will such an investigation give us any hint of a sys- 
tem that is demonstrably true, or of a religion that is both 
Christian and scientific; one that sounds an active, optimistic 
and aggressive note; that does not dwell upon an inaccessible 
height of mere idealism; that is something more than the 
shallow, airy vaporings of current theological or metaphysical 



THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE 

abstraction, or a mere bundle of paradoxical theories; some- 
thing, in fact, which has a firm grasp upon reality and will 
reconcile both science and religion "with signs following?" To 
quote a learned speaker at the World's Parliament of Religions 
held in Chicago in 1893, "the world is waiting for the man of 
genius, who shall come forward and establish union between 
science and Christianity." 

Let me repeat the question again: Is it possible to find a 
religion that will not only exercise the powers of the soul in 
its subjective states of religious experience, but will have a 
positive and direct connection with the actual world of finite 
human lives; that will be in definite touch with concrete facts 
and joys and sorrows; that will satisfy the scientific, fact-lov- 
ing mind because it is based on a scientific, demonstrable Prin- 
ciple; because it is practical and operative and produces re- 
sults which can be seen and known of all men ; something, in 
short, destined to abide because it can be made practical and 
because it meets and satisfies the fulness of man's needs? 

This age is becoming more and more insistent in its de- 
mand for a religion that will exert a vital influence upon the 
controUing forces of human life; that need not be banished 
from the home, or outlawed from education and have no place 
in the world of living thought; a religion, in short, which is 
something higher, better and more satisfactory than mere 
religious formalism. These questions have a deep significance 
in these latter days inasmuch as Jesus taught and demonstrated 
that there is available to man a religion which is scientific and 
so unerring and so comprehensive in its nature and operation 
as actually to meet the needs of the race in overcoming all ills ; 
this rehgion and this science is the Christianity of the New 
Testament; it is the knowledge of God and His eternal laws, 
and it achieves the purposes of good. 



THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE 

IV. 

There are multitudes of men and women, religiously in- 
clined, who find little in Protestant creeds and formulas to at- 
tract them. The Roman Church on the other hand, repels 
them by its absolutism. In this age of spiritual liberty for the 
individual, an age becoming more and more pre-eminent for 
its emancipation of the spiritual man, it is doubtful if they 
could present credentials of belief sufficiently orthodox upon 
which to gain admission to any of the evangelical churches. 

Men everywhere are coming out into the open. Religiously 
speaking, they are breathing the air of spiritual freedom, un- 
fettered by outworn dogmas, creeds and theological formulas. 
There are not wanting signs of a deepening spirit of true re- 
ligion, of a spiritual receptivity and of a truer Christianity, 
that, "rising from the death of sectarianism," as Dr. Newman 
Smyth has well observed, "will be fashioned of the spiritual 
elements and made luminous with love, and yet be so visible 
wherever its disciples meet together, that the presence of the 
glory of Christ will be made manifest even as He prayed." 

The thought of some new, more universal order of Chris- 
tianity is coming to men's minds spontaneously and generally. 
But how to solve the problem of religious modes and methods 
with the largest liberty of thought ; how to reconcile the free- 
dom of the spirit with an outward order, how to find the 
source and vitality of religion in immediate personal experience, 
and yet maintain Christianity as a visible and supreme author- 
ity in the world ; this indeed is a task which calls for the high- 
est, most consummate constructive religious statesmanship. 

We are witnessing a crisis in the domain of religious 
authority. And at no time in the history of the church has 
the necessity of an appeal to Jesus Christ and the Truth which 
He proclaimed, been so deeply felt. The idea of a Christian 
society based on a personal and vital fellowship with Jesus 
Christ is becoming enthroned in men's mind. The question, 



THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE 

"are we to have in this century a gospel for all men such as 
He gave to the world?" is fast becoming the vital issue in the 
religious world of to-day. 

Never in the life of Christianity was there a greater need 
for the recognition of the fact that the starting point of 
Christian faith and doctrine is to be found in the acceptance 
of the truth that man is spiritual — made in God's image and 
likeness — and belongs by right of birth to the one Church of 
Christ, the one Christian society or Brotherhood, which Jesus 
Christ came to establish. 

These questions invest with a profound interest and sig- 
nificance the religious movement inaugurated by Mary Baker 
Kddy, a movement which is remarkable not only for the in- 
fluence which it exercises over its followers, and for the em- 
phasis which it places upon the Christ-Truth as the supreme 
authority; but for the bond of unity which holds its members 
in loving accord and for its vital energy and capacity to adapt 
itself with seemingly inexhaustible grace to the ever-changing 
demands of its environment in human thought and life. 

"What more visible shall be the one universal church, see- 
ing which the world will beHeve?" asked a prominent church- 
man recently. Is it other than the ideal of Jesus Christ, the 
ideal of the New Testament, the ideal church of the great 
Apostle to the Gentiles, a church which shall live among men 
in the love of the Son of Man as the servant of all ; obedient 
in every thought to the truth that makes free ; a church which 
shall possess as its own the fulness of its creeds, "and ever 
follow on to know the Lord ; praying always with all the saints 
that it may be strong to know the love of Christ which passeth 
all knowledge?" Is this the ideal which the Christian Science 
movement is holding before its followers, and if so, to what ex- 
tent is the Christian Science Church realizing this ideal in 
the lives of those who espouse its cause? 



THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE 

In the treatment of the subjects with which this volume 
deals, the aim has been to make the work expository rather 
than argumentative. The conclusions which it suggests or en- 
forces are the result of careful study and reflection, but their 
basis is one of fact. The issues with which it deals are issues 
of tremendous import; the questions which it raises are of 
grave concern and demand a conclusive answer. 

Is Protestantism or the Roman Church gradually ceasing to 
be, in any true sense, a final or permanent religious organism 
in society, or are these denominations to be accepted as a 
Christian finality? Will Christendom conform to the demands 
of the times or continue to obstruct or prevent a return to the 
simplicity and heahng power of the early Christian Church? 
And if not, will there be a final breaking away of its followers 
and the estabHshment of a new religious order or visible 
church patterned after Jesus Christ's ideals? 

The age of creed-building and of ecclesiasticism belongs to 
the past. Theologians are no longer addressing themselves to 
the task of devising new formulas of faith. Time was when 
orthodox theologians were accustomed to formulate religious 
propositions and then bend their intellectual powers to prove 
them. Now, the greater part of this sort of scholastic theology 
is being relegated to the scrap-heap. 

Over and against the waning influence of the orthodox 
churches upon the Hves of men and women; amid the con- 
fusion of counsel among church leaders themselves in the face 
of the seriousness of the crisis that confronts them, we may 
discerij the signs of the times, writ large upon the horizon, 
which presage the dawn of a larger Christianity, a broader 
Catholicism which is already coming to the hour of its 
nativity. 

V. 

To exalt the person and the work of the great Founder of 
the Christian religion ; to emphasize the pure type of religion 



THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE 

which Jesus gave to the world, a religion which is both scien- 
tific and Christian and in which is to be found God's response 
to human need ; to expose false behef s and thus help to arrive 
a little nearer to ultimate truth ; to bear a useful part in ridding 
the human mind of illusions ; to break the fetters which enslave 
humanity and hold it in bondage to ignorance and fear; such, 
in brief, are some of the objects of this volume. In these 
pages an endeavor is also made to expound anew the mean- 
ing of that existence which is called life; to reveal realities; 
to open, as it were, the gates of Paradise which falsity has 
closed upon the human race ; to help roll away the stone which 
a gross materialism has placed before the door of human faith 
and hope and aspiration, and to scatter "the dark pile of 
human mockeries" raised by a materialistic science, and a 
scarcely less materialistic theology. 

The outlook upon life which this book presents is one of 
optimism. It hails the dawning light of a new era in religion 
and medicine; an era when health will triumph over sickness 
and mortality; when pain and suftering will be replaced by 
happiness, and goodness will be on the winning side; a time 
when materiality will give place to spirituality; when justice 
and honesty will replace fraud, covetousness and iniquity, and 
truth will have its final victory over error. It foresees a re- 
vival of the purity, the simplicity of faith and worship and 
the spiritual power of primitive Christianity. It marks the 
signs and foreshadowings of a higher reality for the human 
race ; the hastening to a climax of that evolutionary travailing 
of the whole creation of which Tennyson dreamed and wrote : 

"One God, one law, one element, 

And one far-off Divine Event, 

To which the whole creation moves.'' 



I. 

THE JURY OF THE VICINAGE 

AMONG the things which have given constant impulse to 
the putting forth of this volume has been the warm in- 
terest in its completion and issuance evinced by so many of 
my friends. The topic v^hich I have undertaken to consider 
has already awakened a profound and widespread interest. 
It is a theme of frequent discussion, not only around the 
dining table at home, but in the hotels and on the railway 
the dining table at home, but in the hotels and on the railway 
trains; nor is it less a topic of animated conversation among 
the employees in the counting room and factory. The man on 
the street will stop to talk over the subject with the friend 
whom he chances tO' meet ; the artisan at the bench finds oppor- 
tunity to question his fellow worker about it. In business, 
professional, religious and scientific circles, in the newspapers, 
in the magazines and the periodicals, it is no less a subject of 
earnest discussion. It has been taken by society as a matter 
of serious consideration to an extent scarcely realized by the 
world at large. 

In preparing my material, I have allowed myself the pleas- 
ure of constituting my friends, acquaintances and others a Jury 
of the Vicinage, to whom I may present facts bearing upon this 
topic. Nor has this pleasing fancy been simply an idle notion 
of the writer. I have found it an inspiration in many ways. It 
has conduced to greater care in my selection of facts appro- 
priate to the subject in hand. It has prompted me frequently 
to ask and apply these questions : "Are the statements which 
you are considering such as can be formulated in terms of 
practical experience ; are they suited to the purposes of this 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

book; will they stand examination by the Jury as a body of 
critics; will they be approved as germane to the subject, or are 
they likely to be thrown out of court, in part or in whole, as 
invalid testimony?" 

The quest which I have undertaken has been a quest for 
the vital truth, for ultimate realities. The standpoint which I 
have taken is that of the lay observer. The motto which I 
have held constantly before me has been this : "Give the Jury 
the evidence which you are able to collect and let its members, 
as a Court of last resort, jointly and severally thrash out the 
Truth." 

In marshalling my facts I have tried to remember that 
there are sincere, honest-minded men and women who hold 
opinions the reverse of my own; and by this I mean the kind 
of people who are what might be termed thorough -going con- 
servatists ; who cling tenaciously to the faith of the fathers and 
would hesitate to accept an invitation to tread the pathway of 
that genial and radiant optimism which to me seems so allur- 
ing. Nor have I lost sight of the fact that, while the Idealist 
undoubtedly succeeds from time to time in ridding the world 
of "antiquated and useless baggage," the conservative per- 
forms quite as useful a part in saving the priceless things that 
maintain an unchanging worth through every generation. Even 
though the liberal may offer many a new and inspiring idea 
of betterment for mankind, it is the conservative to whom we 
must look for protection from fraudulent imitations which 
have no real or substantial value. 

There are doubtless members of the Jury who are in the 
habit of studying the questions and occurrences of the day; 
who are accustomed to form opinions of their own and to stick 
to them through thick and thin, and who, consequently, may 
not be at all disposed to accept everything that I may present, 
unless supported by a convincing array of facts. Be this as it 
may, T trust that no member of the ]ury will be lacking in 



THE JURY OF THE VICINAGE 

courage and readiness to subject his or her own personal 
opinions and beHefs to an honest review in the light of the 
facts which I have gathered. None of us can lay claim to in- 
fallibiHty on any given subject; besides, infallibility is a thing 
to be not merely proclaimed ; it is a thing to be demonstrated. 
Let us, therefore, study all the facts within our purview with 
an open mind, lest it should happen that the beliefs which we 
entertain prove to be out of harmony with truth, and ourselves 
out of harmony with reality. 

Our Jury, no doubt, includes men and women of differing 
creeds and varying knowledge of the subjects which I have 
undertaken to discuss. Differences of opinion may arise; let 
us believe that there will be no irreconcilable divergence of 
views on the main issues and no difficulty in reaching a ver- 
dict from which there will be no occasion to appeal to some 
higher tribunal. 

In our search for truth let us neither be too tolerant nor 
too critical. We all know that there are men of science and 
theology and medicine as well, with limited views and com- 
placent opinions, who are intolerant of all that does not agree 
with those theories or doctrines which they consider well es- 
tablished. But we must not overlook recent developments, not 
only in the realm of science but in the realm of religion and 
medicine as well, nor the significant fact that they are changing 
in a revolutionary way some of our established ideas on these 
subjects. 

This is a day and age of practical things, in which outworn 
and outgrown theories are being relegated to obscurity, where 
they properly belong. We live in an epoch-making period, an 
age eminent for its vast extensions of knowledge. New views 
of truth are constantly emerging and it is not safe to condemn 
new ideas because they are contradictory to our own. It is 
better to face the facts as we find them, rather than to follow 
the customary way of condemning too harshly new facts and 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

phenomena, new opinions and new beliefs that make a serious 
arraignment of our own precious stock of ideas or convictions 
and experiences, or, what is worse, of ignoring them altogether, 
and abusing those who bear witness to them, or else of visiting 
them with a hailstorm of contempt and ridicule. 

From the time of Protagoras, with his famous dictum, 
"Man is the measure of all things," down to the present time, 
every great movement in human thought has had to run the 
gantlet of criticism; nor need I remind the Jury that nothing 
is easier than to criticize ; nothing less constructive. 

"Clear knowledge of what one does not know is just as 
important as knowing what one does know," declares Huxley. 
Again this great scientist and philosopher says: "Take noth- 
ing for truth without clear knowledge that it is such ; consider 
all beliefs open to criticism and regard the value of authority 
as neither greater nor less than as much as it can prove itself 
to be worth." He continues, "The modern spirit is not the 
spirit which always denies, delighting only in destruction; still 
less is it that which builds castles in the air rather than not 
construct. It is that spirit which works and will work, 'with- 
out haste and without waste,' gathering harvest after harvest 
of truth into its barns and devouring error with unquenchable 
fires. "^ 

The distinguishing mark and characteristic of true intelli- 
gence is, that we shall be able to discern that what is false is 
false and what is true is true, thereby attaining that degree of 
understanding which will enable us to strip off the disguise 
which human credulity has so thrown about the unrealities of 
life as to make that appear real which has no reality nor sub- 
stance. 

That was a true saying of an ancient philosopher, "The 
great man is he who has kept his child heart." It recalls a 
bit of suggestive counsel, attributed to a famous scientist which 



Huxley's "Hume." page 8. 

4 



THE JURY OF THE VICINAGE 

we may not inappropriately offer just here : "Sit down before 
all the facts as a little child." And is it not said in the Book of 
Books, by one who spake as never man spake, "Except ye be 
converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into 
the kingdom of heaven" ? 

We live in a world of realities that can be infinitely useful, 
and the importance to human life of having true beliefs about 
matters of fact is not easily overestimated. It is our duty not 
only to be keenly alive to the facts embraced within the field 
of our own observation and experience, but to be alert to 
those facts which are borne in upon us through the study and 
research of others. And if these facts do not coincide with 
pet theories which we may entertain, however plausible they 
may seem to us, let us not say "so much the worse for the 
facts." Facts are stubborn things, and our theories should be 
retained only so long as they will square with these facts. A 
theory at best is only a convenient method of classifying em- 
pirical data. We have a perfect right to insist that new the- 
ories presented for our acceptance shall adequately justify 
themselves by the facts, and this is the pragmatic test to which 
we have already alluded. But whenever we give expression to 
views that are not in agreement with inherited beliefs we may 
expect to be the target for epithets borrowed from the darkest 
terms of mediasval persecution. But what matter if the insight 
or truth we bring is one to enrich the life of the spirit or cor- 
rect the errors of sense. 

The old Ptolemaic theory of the movements of the heavenly 
bodies was based on sense impressions which clearly indicate 
to us that the earth is stationary and that the sun revolves 
around it in a westward direction during the day time. If we 
depend upon our organs of sight to tell us what is true and 
what is false about the motions of the solar system we may as 
well accept the dictum of Jasper, the old Virginian darkey 
preacher, and insist that it is not the earth but the sun that 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

"do move." But this Ptolemaic theory which mankind held 
for centuries was upset years ago by the facts which Coper- 
nicus brought to light. 

We all read facts differently, and what we may say about 
reality or truth depends largely upon the perspective into which 
we may throw them. The facts which I have gathered per- 
taining to existing conditions and fundamental principles in 
the religious and the scientific worlds of to-day are now in your 
hands. I have endeavored to present these facts in such man- 
ner that you may be able to see them in a true perspective and 
so reach correct conclusions concerning the issues involved and 
the outcome thereof. I ask you to well and truly consider this 
evidence in the spirit of these introductory remarks. 

Let me premise just here that neither the literary quality of 
the work nor my motive in writing this book is the trial issue 
in this case. It is for you to accept, if you will, the task of 
rightly interpreting the facts and the message which the book 
contains in the interest of that better understanding of the 
real, the absolute truth about things, which we are all seeking 
to attain ; that truth which some day will revolutionize the con- 
clusions of human knowledge concerning man and the universe 
and its great Creator, and bring the fruition in human history 
of the purposes of the Eternal. 



II. 

SCIENCE REACHES THE BORDERLAND OF SPIRIT 

DURING recent years there has been a revolutionary over- 
turning of many of those underlying principles of natural 
science, which have heretofore been considered as firmly estab- 
lished. Scientific discoveries have followed each other in quick 
succession, notably the Roentgen rays in 1895, and the Bec- 
querel rays in the year following. Then came the discovery of 
radium in 1898; since then other important discoveries or 
scientific speculations have followed along the line of atomic 
disintegration, the transformation of matter, the thermal effects 
of radio-activity and intra-atomic energy. 

Faraday produced the theory of lines of force, but the 
mathematicians immediately attacked it ; La Place and Poisson 
have "befuddled" us by their objections to the undulating 
theory of light propounded by Young and Fresnel; Ampere 
developed a theory of magnetism, but Poisson and Weber were 
not behind him in theories of their own on this subject. Max- 
well wrote a treatise on electricity, which according to Profes- 
sor Foley, of the Indiana University, "few could read and no 
one could fully understand," because of the fact that his ideas 
of electric displacements and displacement currents were bound 
up in equations without experimental verification and gave 
only the vaguest notion of the subject. 

Science has been accustomed to regard matter and energy 
as the two great entities with which it has to deal, but more 
recent research into the nature of the atoms of which matter is 
supposedly composed, has given rise to the theory that matter 
in the ultimate analysis may be found to be only ether in mo- 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

tion, or something which can be resolved into electricity and 
then into some unimagined mode of motion of the ether and 
that ultimately it will be found that atoms have their day and 
then cease to be. The earlier conceptions of matter as an 
eternal and indestructible entity has been rudely shattered. 
The theory which confers upon matter the attributes of life, 
intelligence and sensation, has gone by the board, leaving the 
materialist at sea as to the guiding entity or principle under- 
lying all the changes of form which constantly occur in nature. 

Matter, as we have already seen, has been reduced to elec- 
tric charge, and we can now take our choice of a variety of 
different theories propounded by science to explain its nature. 
There is, for instance, the one-fluid theory, the two-fluid theory 
and the potential theory. It is claimed that there are strong 
reasons for believing not only in the electrical nature of matter, 
but in the molecular structure of electricity itself, to say noth- 
ing as to the dependence of mass upon velocity, and the theories 
of radio-activity and disintegration of matter. Then there is 
the nineteenth century school of plenum, one ether for light, 
heat, electricity and magnetism. 

"The ether was appealed to from every quarter. Light, 
radiant heat and electric waves were ether waves; an electric 
charge was an ether strain ; an electric current was a phenom- 
enon in the ether and not in the wave in which it appeared to 
flow. Magnetism and gravitation were phenomena of the 
ether; matter itself became an aggregation of ether vortices; 
ether and motion were expected to explain everything."^ 

But matter has no real substance or entity ; it is neither self- 
creative or self-existent. Cause does not exist in matter nor 
mortal mind nor in physical forces. Earlier conceptions of the 
indestructibility of matter is giving way to the conviction that 

^Prof. Arthur L. Foley, in "Recent Developments in Physi- 
cal Science," The Popular Science Monthly for November, 
1910. 

8 



SCIENCE REACHES THE BORDERLAND OF SPIRIT 

its destruction and creation by man are within the range of 
scientific possibihties. So far as material properties or any- 
inherent energy or reality is concerned, it has none. Motion, 
or force, or energy, or vibration, are not intelligent, hence are 
not in any sense creators of aught that exists in nature. 
Changes in physical phenomena are due to force or energy or 
ether strains and are thus reduced to idealistic forces which 
are beyond the cognizance of the senses. They cannot be seen 
or measured. They are only known by certain effects com- 
monly attributed to them. To-day even such important theo- 
ries as those of the conservation of matter and energy are 
being seriously questioned. 

The old theories of philosophy and science are being rapidly 
undermined or discarded. Materialism as a theory is going out 
of fashion. It is only a short time ago that the eminent 
astronomer. Professor Larkin, made this observation: "It is 
now a full year since any book, pamphlet or letter has been 
received here containing arguments against the scientific neces- 
sity for the existence of a Creator to account for the universe. 
Whole rows of books teaching that matter is eternal and was 
not created, that it originated itself, that it had no origin, is 
self-existent, and like doctrines, the accumulation of years, 
books sent for review, are in the library. They have lost their 
attraction for me. For science now imperatively demands a 
Conscious Power within protoplasm — the only living substance. 
And science knows that this Power is mental." 

The best minds in the scientific world to-day are freely ad- 
mitting that the conclusions of biology concerning the begin- 
ning of life in protoplasm are not conclusive, that back of the 
living cell there must be an intelligent Power. 

Sir Oliver Lodge, in his recent volume, "Reason and Be- 
lief," insists that there is no real contradiction between the 
discoverers of science and the doctrines of Christianity. Alfred 
Russel Wallace, quite as responsible as Darwin, if not more so. 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

for the modern theory of evohition, has become firmly con- 
vinced that the latest investigations of science inevitably point 
to God as the logical Creator and to immortality as the only 
logical completion of life. His latest book which teaches this 
doctrine is now in course of publication. 

"I know of but six persons," says Graham Hood in a recent 
article entitled, "Science and Divinity," "who even claim to 
hold to materialism, and I am not quite certain as to the sin- 
cerity of two or three of these exceptional individuals. Twenty 
years ago I could have named full one hundred sincere mate- 
rialists. In those times agnosticism was the fashion. Spencer 
was teaching his doctrine of the Unknowable, and the expo- 
nents of Darwinism were finding so much evidence to sub- 
stantiate their claims for the descent of man that they utterly 
overlooked the fact that they had accounted but for one part 
of man's being, and that the purely physical. Back of the 
physical man, however, there was another nature that de- 
manded recognition, and though many were deaf to its exist- 
ence then, even the sane and natural skeptical scientist now 
knows that this, the most vital part of man, can only be ac- 
counted for by admitting the truths that the Bible has ever 
taught — ^that 'in the beginning God created.' " 

Science, pursuing its investigations, finds the evidence of 
energies of which it scarcely dreamed a short time ago. What- 
ever the scientist may call it, whether this energy be intra- 
atomic, sub-atomic, inter-elemental, or be described by some 
other name he knows that it exists and that it exists in quanti- 
ties far beyond the power of man's mind to comprehend. The 
scientist hopes some day, somewhere, somehow, to discover 
the means of unlocking this infinite storehouse, and "if this 
discovery is made," as Professor Foley observes, "all others 
which have been ever made will pale into insignificance be- 
side it." 

"There are no signs and never were of an approach to 

10 



SCIENCE REACHES THE BORDERLAND OF SPIRIT 

finality in science," says Sir William Crookes, in a lecture on 
radiant matter. "But we seem at length to have within our 
grasp and obedient to our control, the little invisible particles 
which with good warrant are supposed to constitute the physi- 
cal basis of the universe. We have actually touched the border- 
land where matter and force seem to merge into one another 
— the shadowy realm between known and unknown — where, 
it seems to me, lie ultimate realities, subtle, far-reaching, 
wonderful." 

It is now but a step out of matter into Spirit. Natural 
science has indeed reached the borderland but it is the border- 
land where Spirit, God, the Divine Mind, the Divine Energy, 
reigns, and here and not in matter lie the ultimate realities. 
The ultimate truth about things which science seeks, is not to 
be found in a study of physical phenom'ena. Matter will never 
reveal to us its ultimate essence, for it has none. Science has 
come face to face with energies which it cannot fathom ; these 
energies are in the divine Mind. The source of all things, 
which science seeks to discover, is not to be found in material 
form, but in Spirit. 

"The scientist may conquer peak after peak of scientific 
knowledge, he may see regions in front of him which ever 
beckon him onward," as J. J. Thompson has eloquently said 
in his Presidential address before the British Association. 
"We do not see our goal, we do not see the horizon. In the 
distance tower still higher peaks which will yield to those who 
ascend them still wider prospects and deepen the feeling whose 
truth is emphasized by every advance of science, that 'Great 
are the works of the Lord."^ 

"Proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie all around 
us," says Lord Kelvin, the distinguished English scientist, 
whose name will be honored, not merely for his grand additions 
to science, but also for his noble and constant faith in the 



'^Scientific American Supplement, September 4th, 1909. 

11 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

eternal verities. That which exists must have had an origin. 
They are as they are either by chance, necessity or design. To 
say that they came into being by chance, is to make one's self 
ridiculous. Chance is out of the question, unthinkable. This 
universe of ours is adapted not simply in its quantity, but its 
distribution, to the wants of the race. How came it so? Lord 
Kelvin answers firmly and unwaveringly: "Because all living 
beings depend on one ever-acting Creator and Ruler." 

The discoveries and deductions of Natural Science afford 
no rational or satisfactory theory of the creation of the world 
of visibility. Science, after centuries of investigation as to the 
ultimate realities, is finally compelled to fall back upon the 
noble utterances of the Scriptures concerning the existence of 
God and the origin of all created things as the only adequate 
basis upon which to build its twentieth century explanation of 
the universe. 



12 



III. 

KINSHIP WITH THE INFINITE 

HE wise men of the East watched the appearing of a 
Star and sought for signs and portents in the heavens, 
foreshadowing the rise and fall of empires and the fate of 
men. But the age when omens, the revelations of the horo- 
scope, the Delphic oracle, the flight of birds, and the course of 
planets swayed mankind is past. Science exploring the realms 
of space finds sun and stars and worlds revolving in their 
orbits, held to their appointed courses by the law of gravita- 
tion. Land and sea, heaven and earth, sun, moon and stars all 
lie before us like an open book the meaning of which science 
is beginning to spell out. Studying the air, the earth, the sun, 
the whole universe is found to be instinct with life. Sunlight 
entering the planet reappears in the flowering fields and 
autumn's golden fruitage. The processes are examined but 
the genesis of life remains unknown. 

Now a new age has come. Science aflirms that there can 
be no explanation of the universe save in terms of Infinite 
Life or Mind. Following the light of science as well as reason, 
man is coming to a realization of his identity and power. 
Again he has discovered his kinship with the Infinite. He is 
no longer an exile from his kingdom; his spirit returns to 
his own. 

Science to-day is throwing intense light upon the idea of 
individual man and of our relation to the Infinite God. It 
affirms that in his deeper self man possesses the qualities which 
relate him vitally and essentially to the Infinite Mind of the 
Universe. The Edinburgh Review points out the fact that 

13 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

thirty-nine living scientists of acknowledged standing have 
openly announced their belief in man's spiritual existence ; 
that the mind resident in all is of the same essence as the Uni- 
versal Mind. This is but one indication that the battle waged 
for centuries between traditional dogma on the one side and 
philosophy and science, history and literature and every form 
of human learning on the other, has well nigh ended. We no 
longer think of God in the terms our fathers employed, God is 
a living God, dwelling in and speaking through man. To-day 
we may think of God in terms prevalent in the scientific and 
the philosophical worlds, as the Universal Mind, the Universal 
Substance, the Ultimate Reality, the Soul of the Universe; 
and this consciousness when full possessed and utilized by 
the race will completely revolutionize ethics, customs, econom- 
ics, religion, and present conceptions of life. 

Science is becoming no longer an enterprise of human 
frailty. It is divine ; its truth is a revelation of God. Truly the 
new light is breaking when the scientist of to-day takes the 
position that in his deeper self man is akin to the Universal 
Soul, the Infinite Mind, God, and is ready tq concede that 
exact laws govern individual relation to Deity. According to 
the newer teaching of science the laws of spirit are as certain 
as the laws governing chemical reactions or the elements of 
the air we breathe. Natural laws, in reality, are simply expres- 
sions of spiritual laws, and the material universe is but the 
concrete form of a spiritual universe which is harmonious and 
eternal. 

Religion is becoming scientific ; science is becoming religi- 
ous. The region of true religion and the region of a completer 
science are one. The time is rapidly approaching when reli- 
gion will no longer be denounced in the name of science as 
superstitious, nor science pilloried in the name of religion as 
ungodly and profane. 

The truth of science no less than the truth of religion is a 

14 



KINSHIP WITH THE INFINITE 

revelation of God and from God, and science no less than 
religion is declaring that man is no alien in a strange universe 
governed by an outside Power. "We are all parts of a devel- 
oping whole, all enfolded in an embracing and interpenetrating 
love of which we too, each to the other, sometimes experience 
the joy too deep for words. And this strengthening vision, this 
sense of union with Divinity, this and not anything artificial or 
legal or commercial, is what Science some day will tell us is the 
inner meaning of the Redemption of Man."^ 

The Scientist at the end of the Twentieth Century may label 
things "known," "unknown," or "to be known," but he will 
never pronounce them "unknowable." He may point to the 
limits of the known in the true scientific spirit and say "here 
our present knowledge ends," but he will never commit the 
folly of earlier ages and say in the arrogance of scientific dog- 
matism: "Here knowledge ends and the unknowable begins." 
Physics and metaphysics instead of being opposing fields of re- 
search will become branches of one field of investigation and 
that field will be called the ''Science of Truth." 

The sacred affinity between the truth which is the object of 
faith, and the truth which is the object of science, at first dimly 
perceived, now finds fuller recognition by both theologian and 
scientist. Through science as well as religion, God is speaking 
to mankind : by it He shows us the glory of His works, and in 
science as in religion. He teaches us His will. "Science illum- 
inates faith," says Paul Sabatier, "and if it makes faith less 
mysterious, it shows how strongly and firmly rooted faith is." 

Religion has relighted her altar fires before which Science 
and Faith may join to worship in spirit and in truth Him who 
created the heavens and the earth, and all things therein. 



^Sir Oliver Lodge in "Science and Immortality. 



15 



IV. 

THE CENTRAL FIGURE IN HISTORY 

THE central character in the dramatis personse of this book 
is a young Jewish carpenter. His figure stands forth in 
vivid distinctness as the greatest creative religious personality 
of either ancient or modern history; nevertheless, He lived 
within His own little world the homely, natural, everyday life 
of our kind. There is no evidence to show that during His 
youth He even went beyond the narrow confines of His home 
at Nazareth, "a little hill-nested Galilean village with the low 
peaks notching the sky around it," nor is there any evidence 
that His boyhood was any different from that of the youths 
and comrades among whom He lived. He was emphatically 
part and parcel of the common people. In the Gospel narrative 
of His life, St. Luke gives this meagre yet illuminating infor- 
mation, 'The child grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled with 

wisdom: and the grace of God was upon Him And 

Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with 
God and man," thus clearly indicating that His life was exem- 
plary in every respect ; that He was well-behaved and well- 
liked in the circle in which He moved. 

He seldom visited the temple at Jerusalem, the seat of 
Jewish learning and worship, nor did He avail Himself of the 
social and educational advantages which that center of learning 
afforded. He had no acquaintance or intimacy with the doc- 
tors of the law, and had no place in any of the higher and more 
influential circles of Jewish life, either worldly, educational, 
religious or political. But this Galilean youth was no idle 
dreamer. While He worked with his hands at the carpenter's 

16 



THE CENTRAL FIGURE IN HISTORY 

trade He was keenly observant of the life about Him. In His 
school of training — the only school which He ever attended — 
there were just two text-books, the Old Testament Scriptures, 
"descended from the mysterious antiquity of His race," and 
the book of nature. These He studied faithfully. Both books 
to Him were open. Their lessons He marked and pondered 
deeply. He penetrated beneath the material surface of things 
and found their spiritual cause, as Pharisees and Scribes and 
learned doctors of the law had utterly failed to do. Later in 
His life He interpreted and expounded the spiritual meaning 
of the Scriptures "as one having authority and not as the 
scribes." 

We can well believe that again and again, "He climbed 
alone to the top of the little hill to the west, leaving behind the 
cisterns, the olive orchards, the tombs in the cliffs and the 
oleander thickets, mounting upwards to the broken summits 
above Nazareth, to look away into the interminable distances 
and to muse over the mystery of it all. There at His feet lay 
Galilea, all fragrant and bright in the rich eastern air. Far in 
the north was the ghostly peak of Hermon. Towards the east 
was the light-hung cone of Tabor, and a thin gleam of the blue 
Tiberius. Farther towards the south shot up the dim peaks of 
Gilboa and the more shadowy peaks of Gilead that are beyond 
the tumultuous flood of the Jordan. On the west the gazing 
boy could discern in violet light the laurelled ridges of Carmel 
that plunge down to the sea, far peaks where EHjah had par- 
leyed with the prophets of Baal and cried the prayer that called 
down fire. And there, farther towards the north, He caught 
the faint sparkle of the Mediterranean, whose shores were to 
echo His name down to all ages of the world. So, on the little 
hill behind Nazareth, the boy stood wondering over the mystery 
of the world's beauty that is forever ebbing and flowing around 
the mystery of our own existence.^ 

^Edward Markham, "The Poetry of Jesus." 

17 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

In the valleys, the plains and the hillsides among which He 
worked and lived, this young carpenter saw a meaning undis- 
cerned by the common observer. He loved nature in all her 
moods and saw in all her varied forms the handiwork of an 
Infinite and beneficent Creator. In the lilies of the field "which 
toil not" He beheld a beauty of apparel rivalling that of Solo- 
mon. The fowls of the air "which sow not, neither gather into 
barns," proclaimed God's providential care. This young car- 
penter, this humble Nazarene, talked life, abundant and eternal. 
He declared that mankind should know truth and that truth 
should make them free. He taught fa.ith, righteousness, 
health, happiness. Life and immortality He brought to light; 
sin, sickness and death He proved powerless. These were the 
fruits, the natural efiFects of His understanding of divine law 
and spiritual causation. He saw in the world around Him the 
deeper spiritual meaning of life, and understood as none had 
ever done before man's true heritage as a son of God, created 
in God's image and likeness. He presented to mankind the 
purest ideals of life, so high that humanity in a lapse of nine- 
teen centuries is still toiling up the steeps to reach their moun- 
tain heights. He taught perfection, even as that of the infinite 
Father, a perfection so complete that man still lives in unbelief 
of its realization. 

His message, a strange and new one, stirred and thrilled 
the thought of a worn and weary world. His ambitions vaster 
than had ever dawned on the imagination of any warrior or 
statesman of antiquity, included in their scope the setting up on 
earth of a society or kingdom that should be without the in- 
signia of earthly pomp or glory, or kingly rule; a kingdom 
which should not be material and ephemeral, but spiritual and 
eternal. 

The commission which He accepted, more important than 
any that ever bore a royal seal, pledged Him to a task greater 
than any ever given to other human beings. The mission which 

18 



THE CENTRAL FIGURE IN HISTORY 

He undertook to carry out he made the most self-sacrificing, 
the freest from thought of worldly gain or vestige of self-seek- 
ing in all that He said or did, of any ever undertaken by mind 
and heart and hand of man ; yet of all persons who have made 
history, none has ever lived so brief a public career. He 
brought a gospel of glad tidings of great joy, which should be 
to all people ; He came "to bind up the broken-hearted, to pro- 
claim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to 
them that are bound ; to proclaim the acceptable year of the 
Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God ; to comfort all that 
mourn ; to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto 
them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the gar- 
ment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be 
called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He 
might be glorified." 

Close now the pages of history and tell me what man ever 
essayed a task more lofty, more broadly humanitarian, more 
unselfish, more universal in its outreachings, more laden with 
benefits and blessings to mankind. What man more worthy 
than He to receive the world's welcome? But what manner of 
greeting did He receive? Was it one of glad acclaim? Did 
the world give Him a palace for His home ? Did it crown His 
infancy with royal honors and give Him rank and station 
among the great ones of the earth when He attained to man- 
hood? Nay, at His birth it offered Him the manger of an- 
other man's stable in which to be born ; before He was out of 
His swaddling clothes a wicked king sought His death by 
slaying all the children under two years of age in the place 
where He was born. It drove. Him into exile, gave Him the 
wilderness and the Garden of Gethsemane in which to pray and 
agonize; the cross of the enemy on which to die and a tomb 
belonging to one who feared to show Him open friendship in 
which to lie. 

With unequalled power to possess the wealth, the position, 

19 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

the fame and the royal rule which the world craves most, He 
chose a life of obscurity in a despised Galilean village; He cast 
His lot among the common people where even His own home 
judged Him to be beside Himself in the claims which He made 
as to His mission in life. Spotlessly pure in body and mind, 
living a life of self-denial, ever intent upon His ministry to the 
needs of others, fulfilling in every deed the Messianic pro- 
phecies of seer and prophet of olden times, He nevertheless 
was accounted by the covetous, debauched religionists and tra- 
ditionalists of His day a Sabbath breaker, a friend of publicans 
and sinners, a wine bibber and a glutton. 

The Jewish hierarchy considered Him profane ; the self- 
seeking priesthood charged Him with blasphemy, and declared 
Him to be "possessed of a devil" and in league with "Beelzebub 
the Prince of the Devils." He who came to fulfil the law and 
the prophets was condemned by the Scribes and Pharisees as 
a religious alien, standing outside the community, actuated by 
a desire to destroy the very foundations of religion and society 
itself. 

He knew what it is to be poor and friendless and alone : to 
have no place where to lay His head ; to be "despised and re- 
jected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." 
It was His tragic fate to be misrepresented, misunderstood, 
hated, persecuted, betrayed, to be forsaken by His followers in 
the crucial moment of His life, and to sufirer the death of a 
criminal on an alien cross. He was born poor, lived poor, 
died poor, yet He bequeathed the richest legacy ever given to 
humanity — His words and His works. 

Pie never sat at the feet of any Zadoc or Ezra or Gamaliel ; 
was never trained by Rabbi or Scribe or Priest. No school of 
the prophets acknowledged Him, no academic grove had in- 
structed Him. His immediate following was a little company 
of the very common people. And yet, with sublime disregard 
for all the traditions of His race and age, in the calm and 

20 



THE CENTRAL FIGURE IN HISTORY 

undisturbed consciousness that He was uttering absolute and 
eternal truth, He made these immortal declarations: "I am 
the Way, the Truth and the Life; no man cometh unto the 
Father but by me"; and "this is life eternal, that they might 
know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou 
hast sent." 

In an age of hypocrisy, self-indulgence, greed and covet- 
ousness which flourished in high places, He lived a life of 
absolute spotlessness, unselfishness and unwearied devotion to 
the task which he had undertaken. He exercised His power 
always and only for man. No offer of the world's wealth or 
pomp and power could tempt Him to betray the cause which 
He had espoused, or turn Him from His supreme purpose to 
fulfil at whatever cost His appointed work. Meek and lowly in 
heart. He nevertheless met the world's hostility with a front 
which could not be broken. No threat of governor or eccles- 
iastical dignitary could weaken His dauntless courage. No 
fear of the wicked king who had slain His forerunner, John 
the Baptist, could lead Him to abate one jot of his claims to 
the Messiahship. 

He who betrayed no consciousness of sin and boldly offered 
His adversaries the challenge, "which of you convinceth Me 
of sin?" was a friend of publicans and sinners. He who spared 
not His denunciations of the sins of those in high places, who 
judged sin as no other had ever judged it, sought the society 
of the sinful, moved by a love that was a sweet compulsion to 
save. 

He proclaimed the kingdom of God, a kingdom of right- 
eousness and truth, yet found as His most inveterate foes the 
very ones who claimed to be its constituted guardians. The 
priests resisted Him in the temple which they had prostituted 
to their own sordid uses, yet quailed before the moral majesty 
of this moneyless peasant when He drove the money changers 
from their tables. In an age when tradition and ceremonial 

21 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

had driven faith out of religion, He taught His followers its 
marvelous might. He who came to fulfil the law had to meet 
the contradictions and the controversies of the Pharisees, 
whose traditions and ceremonials had been thrown about that 
law. He who set up a spiritual reality of which the temple 
was but the symbol, had to encounter the opposition of the 
priests who ministered in that temple. Over Jerusalem, stand- 
ing in history as a colossal persecutor, inheritor of the guilt of 
past martyrdoms, He, the Leader of martyrs, utters His sad 
lament : 

"O Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest 
them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gath- 
ered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens 
under her wings, and ye would not !" 

The three closing years of His life were fraught with the 
most momentous consequences. Of these years the first was 
spent in comparative obscurity in the beginning of His ministry 
among men; the second in the popularity of a personal and 
enthusiastic following. In the succeeding and last year of His 
life He encountered the active and virulent opposition of the 
Jewish hierarchy. They were the most strenuous, the most 
fruitful, the most tragic years ever lived by any human being. 
The enmity which Jesus encountered could create but one feel- 
ing in His mind, that ultimately this enmity would fall upon 
His person, and as He could not surrender His mission He 
must be prepared to surrender His hfe. Nevertheless He 
abated not one iota of His high claims as the Great Teacher, the 
Messiah sent from God. Meeting with undaunted courage the 
hostility and persecution of the Jewish hierarchy, the closing 
year of His life reached its swift climax in a shameful death 
upon a malefactor's cross. 



22 



THE CENTRAL FIGURE IN HISTORY 

11. — Jesus the Christ 

Out of death and seemingly utter defeat this Nazarene car- 
penter achieved the most wonderful triumph; the cross upon 
which He was crucified, the symbol of shame and agony and 
death, he made the symbol of Life, Truth and Love, and the 
central emblem of history. He who died upon it became the 
unique religious personality of the race ; His Hfe the most fruit- 
ful, His work the most marvelous. 

In an age when Caesar had carried conquest far with his 
trained and confident veterans ; at a time when Rome ruled the 
world with the sword, when carnage and crime and greed and 
licentiousness and the brutalities of man had spread over the 
face of the earth, this Nazarene carpenter undertook to estab- 
lish a reign of peace on earth, of good will to men; to set up 
a spiritual kingdom in which righteousness^, truth and love 
should abide. 

The great factor of religion in the eyes of the Scribes and 
Pharisees was the Temple, with its priesthood and its sensuous 
forms of worship. Jesus taught that God is Spirit and should 
be worshipped in spirit and in truth ; that God's temple and 
worship are spiritual and not confined to any place. He who 
stands in history as the realization of the perfect man and 
in whom religion was made a living reaHty, deliberately ignored 
those customs and elements men were wont to think essential 
to religion. 

In an age pre-eminent for its priesthood and priestly cere- 
monial. He made none of His followers a priest and created no 
order of priesthood to which any man could belong. At a time 
when positive legislation had emphasized the differences be- 
tween those within and those without their societies, when re- 
ligion had created caste, sanctioned and magnified the pride of 
blood, emphasized the distinction of race, justified the inhuman- 
ity of man to man, Jesus taught that through His teachings all 

23 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

men are to be made kin. Institutional Judaism laid its stress 
upon the acts and articles of worship rather than upon faith; 
Jesus made faith the subjective pivot of religion, separated it 
from uniform and invariable custom, and boldly made it inde- 
pendent of usage and institution and brought the individual 
man and the absolute God face to face. 

He emancipated religion from place and made it co-exten- 
sive and sufficient for man's needs and nature. His is the only- 
religion v^hich has achieved this emancipation, the only re- 
ligion vi^hich has made it possible for men to approach God 
anywhere. He taught that union with God needs but faith. 
The man who believes in the Son of God is identified with 
Him and is lifted by Him into the spiritual mood in which man 
knows and feels his kinship with the Infinite. 

In an age when men believed that God's mind needed to be 
changed by gifts and sacrifices, when the just anger of a venge- 
ful Deity could be met by the sacrifice of an innocent victim, 
Jesus taught that God is by nature merciful, immutably 
gracious, but that man is the being who needs to be changed. 
Levitical legislation had instituted the priesthood, organized 
and regulated its ministry, described and sanctioned its sac- 
rifices; Jesus superseded the multitudinous forms of temple 
worship and the priests who stood and mediated between God 
and man, by the substitution of Himself as the sole institution 
of faith and worship, a substitution which was not merely a 
reform but a revolution. 

The temple which held for the imagination of the Jew an 
irresistible appeal as the place where the Divine Presence was 
to be found, He replaced with the idea that man is now and 
here to find God's presence in the ever-present Christ who 
will ever reveal the true nature of God. He drew aside the 
veil from the face of God and there emerged a Being whom it 
is possible to love, to serve, to worship, to live and work for. 
He. the Christ, is to live in the heart of man as God manifest 

24 



THE CENTRAL FIGURE IN HISTORY 

in the flesh, that all men may see His glory and share His 
grace. The temple at Jerusalem was a type, but not a final or 
abiding reality. Jesus Christ set up the spiritual temple wherein 
no buyer or seller can traffic, nor money changers set their 
tables, nor proud and greedy priest bid the broken in spirit 
depart unpitied. 

With marvelous disdain for all positive laws, whether reg- 
ulative, ceremonial, administrative or coercive, He founded His 
society simply on discipleship. His religion became an evolu- 
tion of belief, not a product of authoritative legislation, so that 
where men worship in Him all the partitions which the ancient 
law and ordinances of religion built up to divide race from 
race fall down and show man face to face with man, one family 
before one God. 

Christ Jesus epitomized and externalized the mystery of 
being. In Him God becomes associated with a person who is 
the symbol of humanity. He stands as the ideal of mankind 
and through Him we may think of God, the universal Father, 
in the terms of ideal humanity, of humanity in the terms of 
ideal sonship. 

Christ Jesus as the Logos, the Son, revolutionized the con- 
ceptions of God and changed an abstract and purely metaphy- 
sical idea into a concrete and intensely ethical person. He be- 
comes the visible manifestation of God, incarnated in a single 
individual. The light which illumines, the life which quickens, 
the love that saves, becomes incarnate in Him. The Logos, the 
Word which became flesh, is, as it were, the tabernacle of a 
universal religion. In Jesus man saw the face of God as far as 
it had been revealed in the flesh. In Jesus God came to men 
and men met God, and the glory which they beheld was God's 
visible presence. There has thus come within the experience 
of man the most transcendant of all mysteries ; the Mind of 
God is translated into human speech, the life of God assumes 
human shape. 

25 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

III. — Christ Jesus the Supreme Personality 

Judged by any of the standards of all times, the character 
of Christ Jesus is still flawless, still ideally perfect, still occupies 
the loftiest place possible to human attainment. Jesus stands 
out in such transcendent light and splendor of achievement as 
the great example for all humanity, that every so-called hero 
of history pales into insignificance in comparison. To-day 
throughout the civilized world He is regarded with Supreme 
respect and even with divine veneration. The wise men of the 
West as well as the wise men of the East watch with the shep- 
herds in Palestine to do Him homage. Catholic and Protestant, 
Orthodox and Liberal, Anglican and Quaker, agree in looking 
upon Him as the supreme embodiment in human history of all 
in man most worthy of imitation, and of all in the Invisible 
Ruler of the universe that is most worthy of reverence. 

The great, the overwhelming majority of Christians, as 
Lyman Abbot has well said, agree in regarding Christ Jesus as 
the personification in a human life of a God who transcends all 
our conceptions of personality. But those to whom He is not 
a divinity vie with their orthodox contemporaries in the honor 
which they pay to His name. Whatever view we may take of 
this great personality, the fact remains that to-day the life and 
the teachings of Jesus are most potential factors in determining 
human conduct. Jesus' life has been studied by the greatest 
writers of our day, and yet no other subject is so fresh and 
inspiring. Scientists, theologians, writers and thinkers of all 
classes have found in the story of His life-work the most 
commanding and entrancing themes that can possibly be pre- 
sented for human consideration. John Stuart Mill holds Him 
to be the supreme standard of life and character known to men. 
Ernest Renan bows before Him as a true Son of God. Tolstoi 
reverences His name, Dr. Koehler, the leading Jewish theo- 
logian of the American continent, finds in Jesus the living man, 

26 



THE CENTRAL FIGURE IN HISTORY 

a paragon of piety, humility and self -surrender, who presents 
to the Jew of to-day "an inspiring ideal of matchless beauty," 
and expresses the belief that the long-hoped-for reconciliation 
between Judaism and Christianity will come when once the 
teachings of Jesus shall have become the axiom of human 
conduct. 

"His character transcends all racial limitations and divi- 
sions. He is the only Oriental that the Occident has admired 
with an admiration that has become worship. His is the only 
name the West has carried into the East, which the East has 
received and praised and loved with sincerity and without qual- 
ifications."^ 

And yet this man who set aside the prejudices of His age, 
nation and sect, who set aside the law with its forms, sacrifices, 
temple, and priesthood, lived a life which gave free range to 
the spirit of God in His heart. In a career, which reached its 
tragic climax on the cross, He so lived as to unite in Himself 
the sublimest precepts and divinest practices. The life of this 
carpenter of Nazareth has been bared tO' the search-lights of 
the ages, and no age has been so intent upon His personality, 
life and work as the present one. His doctrines have been 
analyzed by the clearest intellects. His sayings and His dis- 
courses have inspired more comment and discussion than all the 
literary product of the centuries. In the profoundest theolog- 
ical treatises of modern times the subtlest powers of the in- 
tellect have been employed in the effort to understand and ex- 
plain His unique personality. The criticisms of friend and foe 
have been alike exhausted upon His teachings. 

Christ Jesus stands to-day as the pivotal fact in all history. 
He is the center of all theology. His mission has become the 
light and joy of the world; His words stand as the highest 
spoken on earth concerning the relations between man and man 
and between man and God. 



^Dr. A. M. Fairbairn in "The Philosophy of Religion," 
page 369. 

27 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

"Whatever the future may have in store for us," says The- 
odore Parker, "Jesus Christ is the supreme man in the history 
of the past. The reHgion which He and His followers taught 
came to the world when the nations stood in darkness, not 
daring to go forward. The piety and morality which Jesus 
taught and lived came to the world as a beacon of light to 
chaos, as a strain of sweet music — the fulfilment of the pro- 
phecy of holy hearts, human religion, human morality, above 
all things revealing the greatness of man." 

The personal name Jesus is the one we love most to use, 
and the qualities the world loves to emphasize are the Master's 
human qualities, sympathy, tenderness, simplicity, courtesy, 
friendliness, love. The peculiar charm and value of the synop- 
tic Gospels is the portrait given of Jesus. These Gospels show 
Him as simple, rational and real, a person who never ceased to 
be Himself and who expresses Himself in history according to 
the nature He has and the truth within Him. The one glimpse 
we have of His boyhood shows Him as a boy His parents could 
lose and seek sorrowing, and in His manhood and public min- 
istry He is seen to share our common human weakness. He 
grows weary, is hungry and thirsty, suffers, is in need of sym- 
pathy, seeks God in prayer. The attributes and the fate of 
universal man were His as they are ours. 

Jesus Christ stands as the realized ideal of humanity, the 
bearer of grace and truth. As Lyman Abbot, the eminent re- 
ligious writer, has forcibly observed: "No rationalistic belief 
in a hypothetical Creator to account for the phenomena of cre- 
ation, or mystic's faith in an inward experience of God, inspir- 
ing but undefined and uninterrupted, can ever take the place 
of Jesus Christ, as the realized ideal of humanity, who became 
the inspired manifestation of the Eternal, making known to us 
a human, historical, personified God, the Father of our spirit 
and the companion of our lives." The eminent scientist. Sir 
Oliver Lodge, says: "If it be in human nature that we can 

28 



THE CENTRAL FIGURE IN HISTORY 

gradually grow to some dim conception of the majesty of the 
Eternal, it is the life and teachings of that greatest Prophet, 
that we shall do well to study diligently when we wish to disen- 
tangle and display some of the secrets of the spiritual Uni- 
versal." 

Human history illustrates the truth of St. Paul's words 
concerning the mutability of all human plans. The fashion of 
this world passes, but the transitoriness only emphasizes the 
more the immutability, the eternal permanence of the Gospel 
which Jesus proclaimed. The Christ is the one abiding force 
"yesterday, to-day and forever," in every change in the econ- 
omy of human life. The power and the success of Christian- 
ity has not been and is not to be found in mere numbers or in 
wealth or social standing, or in the worldly advantages which 
Christianity may possess, but in the power of Christ and the 
Gospel which Jesus proclaimed. 

IV. — A New Spring Time 

Turn back the panorama of history till we reach the be- 
ginning of the Christian era, and there is disclosed to our view 
a little band of ignorant fishermen, one-time followers of a 
lowly Nazarene, gathered upon the shore of the Sea of Galilee, 
just a handful of Jewish peasantry, whose high hopes of the 
deliverance of Israel from Roman rule and the establishment 
of the Messianic kingdom, whose speedy coming their leader 
had proclaimed and taught them to declare at hand, had been 
cruelly shattered. 

But this is the daybreak of a new springtime for humanity ! 
He of the pierced hands and the wounded side, whom the 
grave could not hold, appears to their astonished gaze. He 
makes them understand, as they never could have understood 
before, that His resurrection is not merely a physical miracle, 
but a spiritual experience, and that His presence henceforth is 

29 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

to be universal and spiritual. He renews His commission to 
His disciples to preach the gospel to every creature, to proclaim 
the nearness of the kingdom of heaven, to heal the sick, to 
cleanse the lepers, to cast out devils and to raise the dead, even 
as He had done, and then finally declares : "Lo, I am with you 
alway, even unto the end of the world." 

That little band of no longer unbelieving followers becomes 
the nucleus of the greatest religious movement in the history of 
the world. Its rise begins the Christian era and a new calendar 
of time. The religion which Christ Jesus established and which 
we know as the Christian religion or the Christianity of the 
New Testament, begins with but a few simple forms of out- 
ward organization. It is not instituted as a religion of cere- 
monials, but the expression of an inner life lived by faith in its 
founder's teachings; it is a religion which brings new hope 
and energy and healing to humanity ; a religion built not upon 
creed, or dogma, or ritual, not upon ceremonial or sacrifice, 
not upon faith in Jesus of Nazareth, but upon the knowledge 
that Jesus manifested the divinity of the Christ, the Son of 
the Living God. 

From feeble beginnings in primitive simplicity and spiritual 
power, the church has grown into a powerful religious denom- 
ination which holds sway over vast areas of country and com- 
prises within its folds a membership and following of hun- 
dreds of millions of people, nearly one-third of the total pop- 
ulation of the world. It has seen kingdoms rise and fall; it 
has seen monarchies and empires give way to republics, and 
every dynasty fall but its own. It has encountered and suc- 
cessfully withstood materiahstic science whose doctrine of 
evolution, conservation of energy and atomic theory, and whose 
scientific discoveries, cosmic and biological, have astonished 
men and threatened to overthrow the very foundations of all 
religious belief. 

In the lapse of centuries it has grown to be a great sacer- 

30 



THE CENTRAL FIGURE IN HISTORY 

dotal, ecclesiastical organization or corporation with an im- 
posing ritual and a great body of creeds, dogmas and traditions. 
It is now composed of three great divisions or rival groups with 
divers sects or subdivisions within each group, and separated by 
well-nigh irreconcilable differences of doctrine, ritual and 
polity. Whether these differences will become of such serious 
character as to result in the final overthrow of what we now 
know as organized Christianity, and the embodiment of the 
ideal Christianity of Christ Jesus in some other form more cor- 
respondent with its early simplicity, unity and successful min- 
istry, are questions which will be considered at length in subse- 
quent chapters. 



31 



V. 
THEOLOGICAL FORMULAS 

FOR ages creed builders, theologians and ecumenical coun- 
cils have been busy formulating theological and material- 
istic dogmas concerning Deity, and trying to answer the all- 
absorbing and all-important question, "What are the nature 
and the attributes of God?" Many of the theologians whose 
utterances have come down to us in the scholastic theologj^ of 
orthodox Christianity, carry an air of suggestive omniscience. 
They assume to know the Deity and all about His plans and 
purposes and mysterious dispensations. They appear to feel 
it their bounden duty to apologize for God, whose ways they 
try to indicate to man. They reason '*in endless mazes lost 
of Providence fore-knowledge, will and fate." 

"We open a book of theology," says Dr. Snowden, "written 
over forty years ago, and we find the Trinity dissected down 
to minute details, and all figured out as though it were a prob- 
lem in algebra; as though all the mystery of divinity could be 
expressed in words with great positiveness of assurance and 
with arithmetical precision of specification." 

Out of the meanings and uses of isolated verses in Scrip- 
ture, the old theology has drawn the most tremendous infer- 
ences. The God of the Bible becomes a god of dogma and of 
creed, a man-projected being with all the characteristics of a 
rru-^l and vindictive despot. He is pictured as a being liablf 
to wrath, repentance and human changeableness ; as a god 
who is moved by anger, jealousy and cruelty toward his 
defenceless children ; who sent pestilence until he was propiti- 
ated by the smell of burnt offerings and whose anger could be 
appeased only by the sacrifice of an innocent victim. 

The traditional notion is that God is a magnified being, who 

32 



THEOLOGICAL FORMULAS 

sits upon a great white throne ; a being, who is outside and 
apart from the universe; and yet, when he chooses, reaches 
down and in some miraculous way, arbitrarily or capriciously 
makes changes in his machinery of the world, or manifests his 
power in startling and spectacular ways to the children of men. 

The theologians' God is a god who moves in a mysterious 
way ; who houses one in poverty, or clothes him in want ; who 
rocks the earth in anger, lashes the waves in fury, and enters 
the home in the stillness of night to rob it of beloved ones, a 
being to whom prayers may be addressed, begging that suffer- 
ings may pass, or that capacity may be granted to bear with 
proper patience the trials and sufferings ordained by his over- 
ruling providence. Theologians say he made some parts of 
his creation bad, very bad indeed, especially the larger pro- 
portion of the human race, so much so that He must some day 
do his work over again, because it was not done right in the 
first place. And yet the Bible depicts God as a being of love 
and almighty power, who made all things by the might of His 
word, and who saw all that He had made, and pronounced it 
"very good." 

Scholastic theology teaches belief in an omnipotent God 
who is infinite in all His attributes of wisdom and love and 
truth, the creator of all things, but forthwith acknowledges the 
existence of an evil principle, or power, opposed to God; an 
evil being who is constantly thwarting God's purposes and 
plans; and a universe wherein all are subject to a supposed 
law of disintegration, disease and death. 

Although it presents a conception of God as omnipresent 
Spirit, infinitely wise, powerful and good and who, as St. James 
teaches, "tempteth no man," it yet makes God the author and 
the supporter of a system of which evil is a legitimate outcome. 
An evil being, in the form of a serpent, is declared to be the 
cause of an act of disobedience on the part of our first parents, 
committed 4,000 years ago in the Garden of Eden ; and from 

33 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

this one act all the sin and misery of human life have followed 
in consequence! 

St. John declared that the Son of God was manifested to 
destroy the works of the Devil. The great Apostle to the Gen- 
tiles taught that Christ came to destroy the power of death. 
The Bible everywhere represents evil as an offence to God who 
cannot look upon it with the least degree of allowance. Never- 
theless, rather than surrender to pet dogma, theologians stick 
to His Satanic Majesty as an integral part of God's universe, 
with the implications of a reign of evil and consequent human 
misery. 

God is described as the God of the living, yet it is taught 
that He instituted death as a necessary preliminary to life and 
the gateway to heaven. Despite St. Paul's contention that 
death is an enemy that must be overcome and that Christ Jesus 
"brought life and immortality to light" the clergy still main- 
tain its "utility," its manifestations of natural law, its timely 
friendliness, hence its legitimate place in the ordering of life 
as an agency of God. Death is represented as the portal to 
immortality. Heaven lies beyond this vale of tears. 

Scholastic theology upholds the doctrine of hell and eternal 
punishment for the greater portion of the human race, save 
only the elect few, predestined to glory from the foundation of 
the world. According to the conception of the older theologies, 
the principal effort of the human race was to be directed to 
the task of appeasing an angry God, and thus, by sacrifices and 
ceremonies, prepare for a reception in heaven at the right hand 
of the throne. In our pulpits of the present day the fear of 
the wrath of God is still urged as an incentive to fly in terror 
for refuge from the pit, despite the fact that punishment never 
made any man truly honest. 

Disease and evil, sufifering and death, as realities, are in- 
sisted upon. They are accepted as an inalienable adjunct of 
man's existence and are assumed to be within the compass of 

34 



THEOLOGICAL FORMULAS 

God's providence and as subserving some useful purpose. Evil 
is considered a factor of good, its reality accepted as essential 
to a well-developed sense of the existence of God. Accepting 
physical sense testimony as to its reality, the theologian argues 
for its educational value and necessity. 

The conditions which involve sin and suffering are regarded 
as beneficent and of divine appointment. "It is implied in the 
Bible," says one of our present day clerics, "that sickness, pain 
and death will last as long as the human race consists of spirits 
dwelling in mortal bodies ; that sickness and pain may be miti- 
gated by natural science and the consolations of philosophy 
and that religion will enable sufferers to bear the inevitable." 

"The dispensations of providence," dark and inscrutable, 
are to be endured with resignation or with silent despondency, 
with open rebellion or stoical indifference, as the character of 
the sufferer may be. Religious teachers have sought to per- 
suade our tortured hearts to say in the fearful ruin, "God's will 
be done," and therefore, "I turn to God to comfort me." 

The horrors of sickness, suffering and death which attend 
this mortal life, and which rest upon the good, no less than 
on the bad, on the innocent no less than on the guilty, are made 
to appear as a providential provision. Any interference with 
the administration of the divine law of retributive justice, we 
are told, insults the divine providence, by denying the purpose 
of this mortal life. 

Dreading a revengeful Deity, haunted by the fear of Him 
who stands for all-power ; without hope of escape from this 
all-seeing eye and seeking refuge in all manner of attempts 
to placate God's awful anger — such is the pitiable condition 
induced by an acceptance of the theological doctrines and 
dogmas of the orthodox expounders of the Bible. Poor suf- 
fering humanity is taught that men exist as victims ; like peb- 
bles "on a capricious shore of destiny" ; that they are doomed 
to be sick and die at any moment, and that they have no ade- 

35 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

quate power to resist; that the human race cannot be saved 
on earth, or while aHve, that the only way to get rid of the 
heavy hearts, heavy burdens, the sorrows and miseries of life 
— the only way out, "is to die out." 

As Jesus instituted it, Christianity, of all religions on earth, 
is most calculated to dispel fear and impart a joyous outlook 
upon life, yet have not theologians made it a pessimistic philos- 
ophy ; have they not made it the apotheosis of fear ; have they 
not attempted to terrorize humanity with dark pictures and 
awful penalties? Still the orthodox theologian continues to 
sound the old note of self-depreciation, lowly humility, spiritual 
pauperism, and mental beggary, while millions have been 
doomed to despair, or consigned to perdition. Through their 
teachings has not fear of the future terrorized the race? 
Through nineteen centuries, since the dawn of the Christian 
era, have not their teachings drowned that song the angels 
sang, "Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth, peace, good 
will to men"? Have they not suppressed the faith that Jesus 
taught His followers, the knowledge of an infinite, loving All- 
Father, and an unquestioning trust in God's providential care? 

The occasional recurrence of the terms, "Devil," "Satan," 
"Hell," "eternal punishment," "damnation," etc., in the Bible 
may be cited apparently to sustain the hideous doctrines of 
perdition and the damnation of souls as taught by orthodoxy, 
but the accepted sense of such terms is not sustained by correct 
translation of the Bible. The Bible writers, however, never 
knew or dreamed of a place of torment, commonly called 
Hell, nor of a tormentor called the Devil. The Bible does not 
teach that punishment for sin is relentless, arbitrary and ever- 
lasting, but that it is intrinsic and remedial, without reference 
to duration; while on the other hand the New Testament 
teaches the final and complete restoration of all things in 
Christ. 

In the King James translation of the Old Testament the 

36 



THEOLOGICAL FORMULAS 

word "Devil" does not occur. The English word Hell is from 
the Saxon verb Helan, to cover or conceal, and intrinsically 
contains no idea of a place of torment. As has been observed, 
**It never did smell of fire and brimstone in its Saxon home." 

In the New Testament there is no hell in a sense of a future 
place of everlasting punishment. The word Eternity, com- 
monly translated in our New Testaments as eternal, everlast- 
ing, means outside of time, without any reference to duration. 
We get an altogether wrong notion when we regard eternity as 
an enormous and inconceivable accumulation of time. Eternity 
is in the realm of Spirit; and eternal punishment means that 
which is not arbitrary or external, but intrinsic or esoteric, 
and self-retributive. Eternity is the word commonly used in 
our New Testament to render the Greek Aion, and the adjec- 
tive Aionios; our translators have rendered eternal, everlast- 
ing, etc., seemingly at random, although these words are not at 
all kindred in their esoteric meaning. Says J. Freeman Clarke : 
^'You might as well attempt to produce thought or love by 
adding up millions of miles of distance, as by adding millions 
of years of time, to get an idea of eternity. Eternal life, in the 
language of Scripture, has nothing to do with the future or the 
past." When Jesus declared, "He that believeth in me hath 
eternal life," and "This is life eternal, to know thee, the only 
true God," one may readily perceive that these statements have 
no allusion to duration. "Eternal punishment is that preserva- 
tive, remedial retroaction of conduct and thought which attends 
man through his spiritual nature, and the idea of duration is 
not connected with it. Just as soon as you make it mean dura- 
tion, it becomes temporal and hence must have an end. Eternal 
punishment being in the soul, consciousness is necessarily self- 
corrective, and therefore inevitably leads to repentance and for 
this reason cannot be everlasting.^ 

^A. P. Barton, in "The Bible and Future Punishment," 
page 33- 

37 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

The word translated soul in ]\Iatt. 10:28, is psciicha and 
has no reference to the Spirit. It corresponds with the Hebrew 
Nephesh, mere existence or animation, so that this Scripture 
makes no reference to the Spirit of man at all, but only to 
man's physical life. "In all the 700 times when Nephesh occurs 
in the Old Testament and the 105 times when pseiicha occurs 
in the New Testament," says Wilson, "not once is the word 
immortal, or the word immortality, or deathless, or never- 
dying, found in connection as qualifying the terms." 

The words damnation and damned do not occur in the Old 
Testament at all. The Greek word aionion, translated Eternal, 
never did mean everlasting and never had any reference what- 
ever to duration, and the original New Testament is also free 
from this pagan doctrine of everlasting damnation of the souls 
of men. 

Archdeacon Farrer, in a sermon delivered on the subject 
of Bible translation, made this emphatic declaration: "I say 
unhesitatingly, I say, claiming the fullest right to speak with 
the fullest authority of knowledge ; I say, with the calmest and 
most unflinching sense of responsibility — I am standing here 
in the sight of God and my Saviour, and it may be of the 
angels, and the spirits of the dead — that not one of these words, 
'Damnation,' 'Hell' and 'Everlasting,' ought to stand any 
longer in our English Bible, for in our present acceptation of 
them they are simply mistranslations." 

But the bonds of dogma and tradition, of blind authority 
and blind faith are being rent in twain in this day and age. 
"The times are changed ; old systems fall. 
And new life o'er their ruins dawns." 

The Bible's esoteric teachings, in the light of a better un- 
derstanding, glows with the faith of ultimate triumph and 
restoration. The book is clear of the conception of such a 
thing as the theological devil or of an orthodox hell. It sings 
with the music of Love's Evangel : "Oq earth, peace, good will 
to men." 

2,^ 



VI. 
THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 

"One of the leading facts in the philosophy of history," 
says the German theologian, Rev. Dr. A. Rucker, "is to be 
learned here, as elsewhere, that of all the factors that make 
peoples, races, individuals, what they are, the most potent is 
and has been religion." If you ask, "What is religion?" I 
answer, it is that divine reality which kindles into life and 
exalts mankind, and knitting them together in a bond of 
brotherhood, directs this life towards a supreme and comm m 
good; it is living in love and holy harmony with the will of 
God. It is "a daily walk with the eternal," as a great thinker 
has said. It is a conscious relation between man and God and 
the expression of that relation in human conduct. If you ask 
me what is its work, I answer : the creation of a humanity 
that shall in all its persons, relations and institutions express 
and realize that harmony with the will of God. 

"True religion is no piece of artifice; it is not a boiling up 
of our imaginative powers, nor is it the glowing heats of 
passion; though these are too often mistaken for it, when in 
our jugglings in Religion we cast a mist before our own eyes. 
But it is a new nature informing the souls of men ; it is a God- 
like frame of spirit discovering itself most of all in serene and 
clear minds, in deep humility, meekness, self denial, universal 
love of God, and all true goodness, without partiality, and with- 
out hypocrisy ; whereby we are taught to know God and know- 
ing Him to love Him and conform ourselves as much as may 
be to that perfection which shines forth in Him."^ 

^John Smith, the Platonist. 

39 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

"Pure religion and undefiled is the chief glory of human 
existence, it is of infinite worth and beauty ; it shines in the 
intellect with a steady light ; it beats in the heart with a pulse 
of fire; it utters itself in the sacrament of loving service; it 
builds the character into permanent conquest over evil and 
pain and fear."^ 

And the essence of all true religious experience in all ages 
has consisted in the consciousness of unity with God and the 
determinative idea in every religious system is the idea which 
the believer holds as to the nature and attributes of God. A 
religious man is fashioned by his conception of God; in the 
highest sense he is an image or miniature of his Maker, a 
form realizing in time the thought of the Eternal. It is upon 
his idea of God that his idea of himself really depends. If his 
conception of God is narrow and unworthy so must be his 
conception of himself. "As a man thinketh in his heart so is 
he." If his thought of God is lofty and noble his thoughts of 
himself must inevitably become lofty and noble. 

The spirit of religion is ever uplifting; it alone can give 
man that courage which defies all obstacles in his pathway and 
enables him not only to believe but know that there is a divine 
meaning to his individual life and the life and efforts of the 
race. Let a man once take into his deepest thought and life, 
this vital realization of God, and, as J. Herman Randall has 
fittingly said, "Let him feel that he is not weak and helpless; 
that he is not a poor and pitiable object, buffeted by circum- 
stances and change; that he is never totally and absolutely 
depraved ; that he is an actual part of God, that his life is one 
with the Father's life and that it only rests with Him to enter 
more deeply and more continuously into the realization of this 
oneness between Himself and the Infinite God — then His life 
takes on a new meaning and dignity, a new grandeur and 
power, such as it has never before possessed." 

"The men who live as for eternity," says Dr. A. M. Fair- 

^Dr. George A. Gordon, Atlantic Monthly for March. 

40 



THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 

bairn, "believing that the problem of their being is in harmony 
with the will of a Divine, Beneficent and All-powerful Creator, 
live under the noblest and humanest inspiration possible to 
men. And this is the inspiration given by religion; to have it 
is to breathe the thoughtful truth that comes of a living faith." 
Jesus Christ stands as the highest goal toward which the 
life of hum.anity has been tending from the beginning. His 
earthly career was an exemplification of perfect oneness with 
God; in Him religion became a living, articulate reality. In 
Him as in no other person who ever trod this globe religion 
became a perfect relation to God, expressed in word and deed, 
creative of a perfect humanity made through knowledge of and 
obedience to God. 

n. 

Out of the multitudes of religions which have had their 
rise in the world, three owe their existence to a person, viz. : 
Buddhism, Mohammedanism and Christianity. Each has 
sought to extend its conquests beyond the limits of its own 
nationality, or in other words, to become missionary. 

Buddhism exists without a personal God. It is said that 
unless its founder had been man we should never have had 
his system or his influence; unless he had been conceived as 
more than man, we should never have had his religion; in 
ether words, his church lives by faith in him and what he 
stands for. 

"There is no figure so familiar in the East as his. He sits 
everywhere in monastery, pagoda and sacred place, cross- 
legged, meditative, impassive, resigned, the ideal of quenched 
desire, without Hne of care or thought to disturb the inefifable 
calm or mar the sweetness of his unsmiling yet gracious face ; 
a silent deity, who bids the innumerable millions that worship 
him becomxC as blessed by being as placid as he. Buddhism has 
been described as the apotheosis of an ethical personality, 
which could not be justified by the reason, but was neverthe- 
less a vivid reality to faith."^ 

^"The Philosophy of the Christian Religion," pp. 270-276. 

41 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

Buddha's philosophy of Hfe was highly pessimistic. "Can 
there be any benevolence," he asks, "in continuing an existence 
which must be either in idea or experience miserable? The 
existence which possssses such eternal possibilities of sorrow, 
nay, such dreadful temporal certainties, cannot be good; its 
very essence is evil ; instability marks it ; birth introduces to a 
world of suffering; death is departure to a world of greater 
suffering, if not in actual experience at least in possible event. 
And where the possibilities of evil are in number and in dura- 
tion so nearly infinite, can existence be other than an agony to 
him who contemplates it with a serious and sober eye?" 

To this he answers : "We must retire from the world and 
cultivate the suppression of the very desire to live, the sur- 
render of the capability to act, the quenching of the thirst that 
by goading us into action binds by merit or demerit to the 
wheel of hfe. When we have ceased to desire we shall cease 
to will, cease to act, to acquire, or to lose merit. The law that 
maintains being and enforces change will then cease to oper- 
ate, and release from the ever-revolving wheel ; we shall attain 
Nirvana and return no more." 

Buddha's society was two-fold : an inner circle, a church 
or order, and an outer circle, the adherents. Those who com- 
posed the inner circle were men and women who renounced 
everything and became mendicants, monks and nuns, persons 
who had the vocation of a holy life. In a system which seeks 
to end the existence which is misery, celibacy and chastity were 
fundamental principles. "The adherents were the devout, 
those who believed in the Buddha, but were not strong enough 
to make the great renunciation and break the fetters that bound 
them to the sensuous world. The cardinal idea of the system," 
as Dr. Fairbairn remarks, "is an individualism which is best 
when realized in the social medium that promises to make an 
end of the individual. This individualism governs it through- 
out. Its one authority is an individual beside whom no second 

42 



THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 

stands. Every individual is a self-sufficing unit, charged with 
the care and the control of his own destiny, who has the right 
of his own free will to make the last surrender, but on whom 
no other has any right to lay a violent hand. 

"The happiest being is he on whom the love of the only life 
he has power over — his own — has died; the next in happiness 
is he who so loves all being that he will inflict suffering on 
none. The first has become a saint and attained Nirvana ; the 
second has entered upon the path and will in due season reach 
the goal." 

Mohammed divides with Buddha and the Brahman, the re- 
ligious sovereignty of the Oriental mind. Islamism, whether 
regarded as a religion or as a state, or both, is the creation of 
positive law, the work of a personal will, we know as Moham- 
med. But this sovereignty is not presented to the eye in the 
form of any image ; its imperious symbol is a book, the Koran, 
which Mohammed's followers accept as a revelation of the 
mind of God and the promulgation of the law which man is 
bound under the most awful and inexorable sanctions to obey. 
"The worship which the Koran enjoins is one of stern yet 
majestic simplicity; it concerns God only and there is but one 
God who has made Mohammed his final and sovereign prophet 
and declared through him that all idols are idleness and 
vanity." 

The Koran is indeed a marvelous book, which speaks with 
tremendous force to men who can and do believe it. "Its God 
is a consuming fire in a sense quite unknown to the Old Testa- 
ment. There the future has but a feeble or shadowy existence ; 
the scene where Jehovah reigns is more this world than the 
next. But in the Koran God is eternal, man is immortal, and 
death is no escape from His hands. In no religion is the other 
world so real as in Islam ; Heaven is described in terms most 
alluring to the oriental imagination, hell in words that scorch 
and blacken. And God holds man and his destiny in His inex- 

43 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

orable hands, awards heaven to the beHever, hell to the infidel, 
no one being able to escape His terrible decree. 

"Above all, authenticating all, stood the prophet. The God 
to be believed was the God he revealed; to deny i\Iohammed 
was to disbelieve God, His authority was ultimate, for 
through him God had freely and finally spoken and only 
through him could God be really known. The primary belief, 
then, in Islam is not the unity of God, but the apostolate of 
Mohammed. 

"Islam is the one absolute book religion of the world, and 
may be most properly defined as the Apotheosis of the Word. 
The Koran is the mind of Alohammed immortalized for his 
people, speaking to them, being questioned by them, making 
their laws, governing their lives. His God is theirs, conceived 
in his terms worshipped in his manner obeyed in his spirit. 
And this means that an Arab's consciousness of the sixth cen- 
tury A. D. has determined the Deity and governs the faith of 
Islam. The connection between the man and the religion can 
thus be dissolved only by the death of both."^ 

TIL 

Of these three founded religions, the Christian religion has 
the most universal religious idea, or in other words, is the 
most capable of being possessed by any people. Nevertheless, 
the Jewish tendency was to restrict God to a particular place, 
a definite temple. His ministry to a specific priesthood. His 
worship to a special form, and His servants to a peculiar 
people. The emancipation of the Jewish religion and its em- 
bodiment in the Christian religion, a religion at once the most 
missionary in its outreaching and the most universal in its 
underlying idea, was the greatest piece of constructive religious 
work the world has ever known. It was accomplished by a 
Jewish peasant, Jesus of Nazareth, whose career began a new 

^"The Philosophy of the Christian Religion," page 285. 

44 



THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 

calendar of time, whose life and teaching constitute the pure 
type of Christianity of the New Testament which must ever 
remain the ideal religion of all time, the purest expression or 
exempHfication of oneness with the Father and of brotherhood 
among men. 

The religion which Jesus Christ established is something 
more than mere attendance upon church services or the ca- 
pacity to enjoy the vocalization of a well-trained choir, or the 
eloquent prayers and oratorical flights of an impassioned 
preacher. It is something more than initiation into church 
membership by the rite of baptism and confession of faith. 
It is more than ritualistic worship and adherence to a creed, 
the support of the clergy or participation in the various activ- 
ities of the church. The Christianity embodied in the life of 
Christ Jesus is more than perfunctory observance of the Sab- 
bath day, or of the communion service, or the offering of long 
prayers in public places. One may do all this and yet live a 
v/holly selfish and sensual life. The religion of Jesus Christ 
has its source and inspiration in an acquaintance with God. It 
maintains its purity and its power by virtue of the indwelling 
of God. 

A religious life after the pattern which Jesus instituted is 
more than mere instruction in ethical standards of conduct or 
exalted ideals of life ; it means a conscious relationship to God 
and the impartation of divine strength by means of which 
those ideals may be realized in a character modeled after the 
Christ standard. To be a Christian means something more 
than a formal assent or belief in a God of dogma or doctrine 
or the acceptance of man-made conceptions of the Infinite or 
of the traditional notions of scholastic theology. These no 
longer satisfy the earnest man or woman who would realize 
the consciousness of oneness with an infinite, all-loving Father, 
and find his reward in the larger understanding and demon- 
stration of the presence of God. 

45 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

St. Paul accentuates the idea of the Christian community, 
set forth by St. Peter, as a people for God's own possession. 
In his Epistle to Titus he says "our Saviour, Jesus Christ, gave 
Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and 
purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." 
St. Paul represents the individual Christian as the temple of 
God. "Know ye not that ye are a temple of God, and that the 
Spirit of God dwelleth in you ?" His conception of the Chris- 
tian community is that of a society or brotherhood possessed 
by the Holy Spirit which inhabits each one and organizes and 
gives growth and harmony to the whole. He conceives of the 
church as holy and without blemish ; as a body of believers, 
speaking the truth in Christ, "in whom all the building fitly 
framed together groweth into an holy temple in the Lord. . . . 
for an habitation of God through the Spirit." And this growth 
is represented as being carried on until it finds its fruition in 
unity of faith, knowledge of the Son of God, and growth in 
spiritual manhood, until we attain "unto the measure of the 
stature of the fulness of Christ." St. Peter describes Jesus' 
followers as "lively stones," built up into a "spiritual house" ; 
as a "holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, accept- 
able to God by Jesus Christ." 

Jesus united Jew and Gentile into one household or fam- 
ily of God. There is indeed a sense in which God is the uni- 
versal Father of all His creation, but Jesus taught a father- 
hood of adoption, of grace; a fatherhood, a sonship and a 
brotherhood v/hich belong exclusively to the Christian com- 
munity. John conceives of the relationship as all summed up 
in love. Irenaeus, one of the early fathers of the Christian 
church, refers to the pre-eminent gift of love, which is more 
precious than knowledge, more glorious than prophecy and 
which excels all other gifts and makes this love characteristic 
of the church. Clement, writing as the head of the Roman 
Church to the Christian Corinth, uses no other authority than 

46 



THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 

that of love, which is the ethical principle of the organic unity 
of the church. 

"Let him that hath love in Christ fulfil the commandment 
of Christ. Who can declare the bond of the love of God? 
Who is sufficient to tell the majesty of its beauty? The height 
whereunto love exalteth is unspeakable. Love joineth us unto 
God. Love hath no divisions. Love maketh no seditions. 
Love doeth all things in concord. In love all the elect of God 
are made perfect ; without love nothing is well-pleasing to 
God; in love the Master took us unto Himself." 

In this Kingdom of Heaven on earth which Jesus came to 
establish all men were to be brothers and all sons of God; their 
worship of Him was to be a service of love expressed in obe- 
dience and realized within the community of saints. Instead 
of outside rules an internal law was to reign ; men were to live 
in the spirit and speak in the truth, governed by a love which 
would not allow anyone to exult in another's evil or rejoice in 
another's pain, but which moved all to a universal beneficence. 

"It was a new idea of God, of man, of religion, each of 
these singly all of them together, and all conceived as man's 
and not as limited to any elect race or conditioned by any 
sacred class. It was wonderful that a universal idealism so 
immense and mighty should have so lowly an origin and come 
to be in a world so prejudiced, pragmatical and divided."^ 

The relationship which Jesus Christ established between 
God and man was one of fatherhood and sonship. Our pri- 
mary duty as God's children is that of filial love to God and 
fraternal love to each other. This is the equal and common 
obligation of all. In the religion of Jesus, worship does not 
depend on sacred persons, places or rites, but is a thing of spirit 
and truth. The best prayer is not that offered on the corner 
of streets or in the public assembly to be heard of men. The 
best prayer is sacred and impersonal, and the man who pleases 

^"The Philosophy of the Christian Religion," page 389. 

47 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

God best is not the scrupulous Pharisee but the penitent 
publican. 

If Christ Jesus be measured by the standard of the Jewish 
rehgion; if His conduct be judged by the ceremonial and tra- 
ditional law of the Jews as it prevailed in His day, He must be 
pronounced an irreligious person. Furthermore, in all that 
He said or did no word or act implied a purpose on His part 
to establish any order of priesthood for His people or to en- 
force any sacerdotal observance. We look in vain in any of 
His teachings for the institutions of a sacerdotal order. He 
promulgated no sacerdotal law, or any outward form of wor- 
ship or rules of conduct, but simply required that His people 
should be perfect as their Father in Heaven is perfect. What 
He founded was a society that should realize His ideals, "a 
kingdom of Heaven" that should be spiritual and eternal, and 
that should come without observation to abide in the human 
consciousness ; a realm where the will of God is law, and the 
law is love, and the citizens are the living and the obedient. 
To the Samaritan woman He declared that God is Spirit and 
must be worshipped in spirit and truth, thus settling all con- 
troversy as to the sacred places of worship. 

The apostoHc church, which may be taken as interpreting 
the mind of Christ, provided for no temple. It had no priests 
and no man or body of men who bore the name, or exercised 
the functions, or fulfilled the duties of priest or the priesthood, 
as they are knovv-n in ancient religions. The apostolic church 
required no sacrifices, save those of the spirit and the life; it 
had no sensuous sanctities. It stood among the ancient faiths 
as a strange and extraordinary thing — a priestless religion 
without the symbols, sacrifices, ceremonies, officials, hitherto 
held, save by prophetic Hebrewism to be the religious all and 
all. 

In founding His ideal religious society Jesus discarded all 
positive laws, whether regulative, ceremonial, administrative or 

AS 



THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE NEJV TESTAMENT 

coercive; His society was founded simply on discipleship, and 
this religious society lived and grew by faith in Him and what 
he stands for, — a brotherhood and fellowship of the Spirit. 
It is a society in which the church is more or less an accident of 
time and place, but in which the spirit and truth of Christ and 
imitation of Jesus' life are essential. 

A singularly clear yet simple and beautiful unfolding, in 
short compass, of the Christianity of the New Testament and 
of the real secret of Jesus Christ's spirit is to be found in a 
volume written by Dr. A. M. Fairbairn, the eminent English 
theologian. The passage ought not to be mutilated in any at- 
tempted summary; I am constrained, therefore, to give it 
entire. It contains the very essence of the Christian religion; 
It is the Christianity of the New Testament as embodied in the 
life of Jesus Christ. 

"Of His ideal, the prophets had dreamed, but He made it 
an articulate reality. God was to Him what he had never yet 
been to man — a living Father, loving, loved, in whom He was 
embosomed, through whom and to whom He Hved. He knew 
no moment without His presence ; suffered no grief the Father 
did not share; tasted no joy He did not send; spoke no word 
that was not of Him ; did no act that was not obedience to His 
will. 

Where the relation was so immediately filial and beauti- 
ful, the mediation of a priest would have been an impertinence, 
the use of his sacrifices and forms an estrangement — the com- 
ing of a cold, dark cloud between the radiant soul of the Son 
and the gracious face of the Father. 

Where true love lives it must use its own speech, speak in 
its own name, and feel that it must touch and, as it were, hold 
with its own hands the higher love that loved it into being. 
And because He stood so related to the Father, He and the 
Father had one love, one word, one will, one end. To see Him 
was to see the Father ; His working was the Father's. Through 
Him God lived among men ; the glory men beheld in Him was 
the glory of the Only Begotten, the Incarnated grace and truth. 

And so this love of God was love of man ; in the Son of Man 
the Father of men served His children, and humanity came to 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

know its God and the things in which He delighted. The best 
service of God was a ministry that redeemed from sin, a sac- 
rifice that saved from death. 

The wonderful thing in religion was not what man gave to 
God, but what God gave to man — the good, the truth, the love 
— the way in which He bore his sins and carried his sorrows, 
made human guilt an occasion for divine pity, and the cure of 
hate the work of love. What God is among His worlds Jesus 
was among men. He is the mind and heart of God personal- 
ized for humanity ; His universal ideal realized. 

And after what m.anner did this realized ideal live? As 
embodied compassion, beneficence, truth, love, working for the 
complete redemption of men. Every kind of evil was to Him a 
misery from which He could not but seek to save. Disease He 
loved to cure, poverty He pitied, doing His utmost to create 
the temper before which it should cease ; the common afflic- 
tions of man touched Him with sympathy, subdued Him to 
tears. But what moved Him most was moral evil — the sight 
of man in the hands of sin ; and in order to save him from it, 
He took an altogether new way. 

He dismissed the venerable methods and impotent formal- 
isms of the priest and the scribe, and went in among the guilty 
that He might in the very heart of their guilt awaken the love 
of good and of God. He did not feel that he condescended, 
only that His love was a sweet com.pulsion to save ; they did 
not feel His condescension, only the goodness that was too 
pure for their sin to sully, that so thought of their good as to 
win their souls for God. 

And the result was altogether wonderful. The law of the 
scribe and the religion of the priest had only divided men — 
had made good and evil accidents of custom, not qualities and 
states of the living person, had cured no sinner, had only cre- 
ated fictitious sins, the more damning that they were so false. 

But the new spirit and way of Christ found the common 
manhood of men, united them, made sin moral, change from it 
possible, even a duty ; made religion seem like the concentrated 
and organized moral energy of God working redemptively 
through men on behalf of man. 

There never was a grander or more fruitful revolution of 
thought, more needed on earth, more manifestly of heaven. 
He who accomplished it was indeed a Redeemer ; through Him 

50 



THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 

religion ceased to be an affair of the priest or the magistrate, 
transacted in the temple and conducted by a ceremonial which 
was prescribed by law; and became the supreme concern of 
man, covering his whole life, working in every way for his 
amelioration, satisfied with nothing less than the perfect virtue 
and happiness alike of the individual and the race — in simple 
truth, God's own method for realizing in man His ideal of 
humanity. 

As Jesus lived He taught; His teaching but articulated the 
ideal He embodied in His character and life. One thing in 
that teaching is most remarkable — the complete absence of 
sacerdotal ideas, the non-recognition of those customs and ele- 
ments men had been wont to think essential to religion. 

He spoke of Himself as a teacher, never as a priest; as- 
sumed no priestly office, performed nO' priestly function, 
breathed an atmosphere that had no sacerdotal odor, that was 
full only of the largest and most fragrant humanity. 

He instituted no sacerdotal office or rite, appointed no man 
to any sacerdotal duty, sent His disciples forth to be teachers 
or preachers, made no man of them a priest, created no order 
of priesthood to which any man could belong. 

Worship to Him was a matter of the Spirit; it needed no 
consecrated place or person — needed only the heart of the son 
to be real before the Father. The best worship was obedience ; 
the man perfect as God is perfect was the man who pleased 
God. 

His beatitudes were all reserved for ethical qualities of 
mind, were never promised on any ceremonial or sacerdotal 
condition. His good man was 'poor in spirit,' 'meek,' 'merci- 
ful,' 'pure in heart,' 'hungering after righteousness,' 'a peace- 
maker.' 

In describing His ideal of goodness He found its antitheses 
in the ideals of the temple and tradition. His example of uni- 
versal benevolence was 'the good Samaritan' ; its contradiction 
the priest and the Levite. True prayer was illustrated by the 
penitent publican, false by the formal Pharisees. 

The parables that vindicated His treatment of sinners en- 
forced the high doctrines that nothing ,was so agreeable to 
God as their salvation, that the mission of the God-like was to 
seek and save them. 

The duty that summarized all others was love to God; the 

51 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

man that loved most obeyed best — for he could not but obey. 
To love God was to love man, to love the divine Spirit was to 
do a divine part, to be pitiful, to forgive as God forgives, to 
bear ill and do good, to act unto others in a God-like way that 
they might be won to God-like conduct. 

And He did not conceive good men as isolated. They 
formed a society, a kingdom. The citizens of His kingdom 
were the men who heard His voice and followed His way. 
God reigned in and over them, and they existed for His ends, 
to create good and overcome evil. 

The kingdom they constituted was 'of heaven,' opposed in 
source and nature to those founded in the despotisms and in- 
iquities of earth ; and also 'of God,' proceeded from the Creator 
and Sovereign of man, that His own high order might be 
realized. 

Such being its nature, it could be incorporated in no polity, 
organized under no local forms, into no national or temporal 
system; it was a 'kingdom of the truth,' and all who were of 
the truth belonged to it. It was a sublime idea ; the good and 
holy of every land and race were gathered into a glorious fel- 
lowship, dwelt together, however far apart or mutually un- 
known, as citizens of the same Eternal City, with all their 
scattered energies so unified by the will of God as to be co- 
ordinated and co-operant factors of human progress and hap- 
piness. 

Men have not yet risen to the clear and full comprehension 
of this ideal ; and the tardiest in reaching it are these organized 
polities or institutions which boast themselves sole possessors 
of Christ."^ 

I am completing this chapter during the close of the year 
1910, when the Christmas spirit is finding expression in mul- 
tiplied and beautiful ways ; when Christmas greetings and 
messages of love and good cheer and numberless kind wishes 
for the new year are winging their way to the very ends of the 
earth. At such a time as this, typical of that coming day when 
the message borne by the angels at the advent of the Babe of 
Bethlehem, 'Teace on earth, good will to men," will be realized, 
not only in part, as now, at Christmas time^ but everywhere, 

^Catholicism: Roman and Anglican, pp. 27-31. 

52 



THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 

during every month of all the year, is it not fitting that I should 
ask you to look at this wonderful word-picture of Jesus Christ, 
even though it be drawn by another hand than mine. 

I ask no higher privilege, no more exalted mission for this 
book, than to bring you face to face with this inimitable pre- 
sentation of the innermost spirit of the Master. Here is re- 
vealed, as it were, the real secret of the life which Jesus lived 
among men, a life and character so complete and catholic in 
its humanity as to compel the homage of universal man. It is 
a wonderful disclosure of the very heart of that great Prophet 
and Teacher, who is the mighty overmastering figure among all 
the world's greatest Teachers and Prophets ; the one personal- 
ity among all others whose words and works have divided his- 
tory into two; that which went before and that which came 
after ; Jesus Christ, who brought within the experience of man 
the most transcendent of all mysteries, how the mind of God 
could be translated into speech, how the life of God could as- 
sume a human form; Jesus Christ, the point towards which 
everything in history has been directed; the point tipon which 
everything in history is so centered as to make all that comes 
after Him increasingly His. 

n you look deeply into this picture, you will see, as in open 
vision, many wonderful things, and discover many wonderful 
meanings. We may almost hear again those imperishable 
words which the Master uttered in that memorable interview 
with Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, on the house-top of a 
Jewish home in Jerusalem, in the quiet and seclusion of the 
twilight hours when the evening shadows had lengthened and 
the heavens were brilliant with the stars that looked down upon 
him ; words which have come ringing down the ages, filled with 
the melody of heavenly music that has been falling in sweetest 
cadence upon human ears ever since these words were spoken : 

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only be- 
gotten Son that whosoever beUeveth in Him should not perish 
but have everlasting life." 

53 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

This word-picture of the Master which is borne to us from 
across the ocean, does it not make us see more clearly than ever 
before Him who is incarnated Grace and Truth ; Him who 
personalizes for humanity the mind and heart of God? 

And if we listen earnestly we may even hear in the inner 
sanctuary of our own heart His words of compassionate love, 
sweeter than ever before fell from human lips. It is the voice 
of a friend who is above all other friends ; a friend who hesi- 
tated at no sacrifice, however great, even unto death, that He 
might draw all men unto Himself. It is the voice of Him who 
spoke the words of Truth ; of Him who, as President Harper 
of the Chicago University loved to say, is "the Life, the Truth 
and the Way to live" ; He who came to bring the kingdom of 
heaven within the experience of every one ; He who was satis- 
fied with nothing less than the perfect happiness, not only of 
the individual, but of the race. 



54 



VII. 
JESUS' HEALING MINISTRY 

NINETEEN centuries ago the world was furnished the 
most stupendous object lesson in the healing of physical 
ailments that it had ever seen. Sickness of all kinds, even 
death itself, was successfully met and overcome without the 
aid of material remedies and in direct contravention of material 
laws. Here was a repetition upon a grand scale of the healing 
and the miracles practised by Moses and the prophets in still 
more ancient times. 

These cures were wrought among the cities and villages and 
plains of Judea, during a period of about three years. The per- 
son who performed these healing works was a young man of 
Jewish descent, about thirty years of age. His parents belonged 
to the ranks of the common people and lived in what would 
now be considered comparative poverty. It does not appear 
that he had any educational advantages or scholastic training, 
either in theology or philosophy, or even in the common 
branches of education, nor did he take a course of instruction 
in any school or institution of learning. There is no record of 
his ever having obtained a university degree, that he ever be- 
longed to any school of medicine or that he ever studied either 
anatomy, physiology, hygiene, surgery or any phase of the heal- 
ing art, as taught in the medical text-books of that day. 

If there is any portion of the New Testament that is ac- 
cepted as true and authentic, it is that part which describes the 
healing ministry and the commission which Jesus gave to His 
followers to do the same kind of healing as that which He did. 
The historical accuracy of the account of His words and works 

55 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

is irrefragibly supported both by internal and external evidence. 
The entire trustworthiness of the New Testament narrative is 
now admitted — ^by friends and foes alike — to be the assured 
result of the most searching and exhaustive criticism. The 
words of Jesus stand unimpeached, the works unchallenged. 

The competency of the New Testament writers who attend- 
ed Jesus during His earthly ministry, as eye-witnesses of these 
works, is such as would be accepted in any court of law. No 
reasonable doubt can exist as to the facts concerning His min- 
istry. That He went about the cities and villages of Judea, 
teaching in Jewish synagogues, preaching the gospel of the 
Kingdom of Heaven, and healing all manner of diseases among 
the people, by spiritual methods only, is certified to by those 
who closely attended Him as His chosen disciples and who per- 
sonally saw the wonderful works which He did. In His healing 
ministry, no record exists that He ever administered drugs or 
prayed to know if God were willing a man should live. He 
acted upon the basis that man, whose life is God, is immortal, 
and not that he has two lives, one to be destroyed and the other 
to be made indestructible. 

In referring to the sane, sober and natural manner in which 
the story of Jesus' life is told by the synoptic writers, Dr. Fair- 
bairn says: "The Gospel writers did not invent their material. 
They reaHzed the scene so perfectly that He is presented as 
only a pen which follows the tongue of the speaker describing 
expressions too vivid to be forgotten can show Him. He is 
presented by these historians in the simplest terms of history. 

"He who was conceived as the Word became flesh. He is 
represented as the most natural character in all literature. In 
Him there is nothing obscure, dark or mysterious ; He seems 
to lie all open to the day. His words are simple and plain ; His 
thought is always clear and never complex. He is the last per- 
son who could be described as a man of myster}^ He does not 
study or practice any art of concealment. He calls His disciples 
and they live with Him, and He lives with them as a man 

56 



JESUS' HEALING MINISTRY 

among men. He does not claim to know the secrets of nature 
or the forgotten things of history, or the day and hour of des- 
tiny, which the Father alone knoweth. He does not stand on 
His dignity or require men to observe the order of their coming 
and going. A Jew who comes by night is not refused an audi- 
ence, for he has come in deference to his conscience, even 
though he comes by night in deference to the Jews; Jesus 
speaks to him as if all men stood before Him in that one man, 
and as a simple matter of fact they did so stand. While He 
rests, tired and thirsty, by Jacob's well, He speaks with the 
woman of Samaria and asks from her water to drink, and then 
He addresses to her words the world was waiting to hear. We 
see Him loved of man and woman, loving as well as loved, liv- 
ing the homely, natural, beautiful life of our kind. His is the 
common, every-day, familiar humanity, which suffers and re- 
joices, knows sorrow and death. 

"His character appears throughout as natural, His conduct 
spontaneous, His motives simple. His thought and speech trans- 
parently sincere. He is without the literary consciousness ; He 
did not write or command anything to be written concerning 
Himself ; neither did He seem to think that the craft of letters 
had any concern with Him or He any concern with it. His 
field of action was in the open air, not in the study ; He was 
content to impress Himself on the minds of men, to live divinely 
careless in the present, without any thought as to how He 
should seem to the future, yet so conscious of the all-seeing 
and all-enfolding God as to make of the moment he lived in an 
eternal Now."^ 

The story of Jesus healing ministry is told in simple yet 
explicit terms. "In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall 
the truth be established." The evidence which the New Tes- 
tament supplies us concerning the cures which Jesus per- 
formed is this : "And Jesus went about all the cities and vil- 
lages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel 
of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease 
among the people. 

"And they brought unto Him all sick people that were 
taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were 

^"The Philosophy of the Christian Religion." 

57 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those 
that had the palsy; and He healed them. And there followed 
Him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Deca- 
polis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond 
Jordan. 

"And at even, when the sun did set, they brought unto Him 
all that were diseased, and them that were possessed with 
devils. And all the city was gathered together at the door. 
And He healed many that were sick of divers diseases, and 
cast out many devils. 

"And Jesus went forth and saw a great multitude, and was 
moved with compassion towards them, and He healed their 
sick. 

"And when they were gone over, they came into the land of 
Geneseret. And when the men of that place had knowledge of 
Him, they sent out into all that country round about, and 
brought unto Him all that were diseased; and besought Him 
that they might only touch the hem of His garment ; and as 
many as touched were made perfectly whole. 

"And Jesus departed from thence, and came nigh unto the 
sea of Galilee; and went up into a mountain and sat down 
there. And great multitudes came unto Him, having with 
them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed and many 
others, and cast them down at Jesus' feet; and He healed 
them ; insomuch that the multitude wondered, when they saw 
the dumb to speak, the maimed to be made whole, the lame to 
walk, and the blind to see: and they glorified the God of 
Israel. 

"And whithersoever He entered, into villages, or cities, or 
country, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought Him that 
they might touch, if it were, the border of His garment: and as 
many as touched Him were made whole. 

"And He came down with them, and stood in the plain, and 
the company of His disciples, and a great multitude of people 

58 



JESUS' HEALING MINISTRY 

out of all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the sea coast of Tyre 
and Sidon, which came to hear Him, and to be healed of all 

their diseases And the whole multitude sought to 

touch Him; for there went virtue out of Him and healed 
them all." 

In no single instance in the record of His healing ministry- 
do the apostles draw any distinction as to the character of the 
disease which Jesus cured. No reference is made to func- 
tional or organic diseases, nor is there any relegation of the 
latter type of disease to the medical faculty of the time, on 
the presumption that such cases were beyond His power to 
heal. We are not left in ignorance as to the means by which 
He performed His cures. He made it perfectly plain to His 
followers that the healing work which He performed was 
accomplished by spiritual means. In His divine therapeutics, 
•'The Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works; if I 
cast out devils by the spirit of God, the kingdom of God is 
come unto you." 

Luke, "the beloved physician," records Jesus' healing works 
with the same impartiality and breadth of description as did 
the other disciples. In no instance does he introduce any 
distinction as to the nature of the cures wrought. All the writ- 
ers of the gospel narrative concur in the modus of cure. No 
reference anywhere in the Gospel is made to the use of drugs, 
surgery, hygiene or material remedies or the cooperation of the 
medical profession of that day. 

To the leper's appeal He answered, "be thou clean," and 
immediately the leprosy disappeared ; to the man sick with the 
palsy. He said, "arise and take up thy bed and go into thine 
house," and the man arose and departed to his house. In the 
home of Jairus amid the lamentations of friends, He de- 
clared, "the maid is not dead, but sleepeth," and H^e took the 
child by the hand and she arose; to the man with the with- 
ered hand. He said, "stretch forth thy hand," and the man 

59 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

obeyed and stretched it forth; the poor man suffering from 
a threefold affliction, possessed with a devil, blind and dumb, 
He healed with a word; "and the blind and dumb both saw 
and spake, insomuch that the people marveled." 

The woman suffering from an infirmity of twelve years' 
standing, who had suffered many things of many physicians 
and who had spent all that she had and grew no better but 
rather worse, touched the hem of His garment and "straight- 
way she was healed of that plague." To blind Bartimeus, He 
uttered the simple but mighty words, "receive thy sight." He 
was moved with compassion for the widow of Nain, follow- 
ing the funeral procession of her dead son, and bid her 
"weep not." To her son in the bier He said, "young man, I 
say unto thee, arise," and the dead sat up and began to speak. 
To the woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years 
and was bowed together and could in nowise lift up herself, 
He speaks in words of authority, "woman, thou are loosed from 
thine infirmity," and immediately she was made straight. To 
the man with an affliction of thirty-eight years' standing He 
said, "rise, take up thy bed and walk," and immediately the 
man was made whole and took up his bed and walked. 

To the ten men suffering from leprosy and standing afar 
off, the direction is given, "go show yourselves to the priest," 
and as they went they were all healed. To Lazarus, four days 
in the sepulchre, the Master's voice sounded, "come forth," 
and Lazarus obeyed. 

The Scribes, Pharisees and doctors in Jesus' time were no 
more ready than are the medical and clerical professions of 
to-day to accept such startling departures from the recognized 
and customary methods employed by regular physicians in 
combating disease. In spite, however, of Jewish unbelief in 
the method and reahty of these cures, it is indubitably estab- 
lished that Jesus healed all manner of sickness and all manner 
of disease by purely spiritual means. And, what is more, the 

60 



JESUS' HEALING MINISTRY 

healing work which He did was not to die with Him ; it was to 
be perpetuated by His followers, and it is also in indisputable 
evidence that this healing work was successfully carried on by 
the early Christians, during the first two or three centuries of 
the Christian era. The commission to carry on Jesus' healing 
work is expressed in the following explicit terms : 

"Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every 
creature And these signs will follow them that be- 
lieve ; in My name they shall cast out devils ; they shall speak 
with new tongues ; they shall take up serpents ; and if they 
shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them ; they shall 
lay hands on the sick and they shall recover." 

Matthew states that Jesus gave his twelve disciples power 
against unclean spirits to cast them out, and to heal all manner 
of sickness and all manner of disease. These disciples Jesus 
sent out with a charge to preach, saying, "the kingdom of 
heaven is at hand," commissioning them at the same time to 
"heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out 
devils." Mark says that the disciples went out and preached 
that men should repent everywhere. He also records that 
they cast out many devils and anointed with oil many that 
were sick and healed them. 

Luke informs us that Jesus appointed other seventy also 
and sent them out two by two, with instructions to heal the 
sick in whatsoever house they entered, and to say unto them, 
"the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you." He also re- 
lates that the seventy returned again with joy, saying, "Lord, 
even the devils are subject unto us through Thy name." Jesus 
immediately responded with this wonderful assurance, "behold, 
I give you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over 
all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall by any means 
hurt you." His commands do not limit His followers' activ- 
ities to any particular section of the country, nor to any special 
period of time, nor to any particular class of people. "Heal the 

61 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

sick, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils, raise the dead: freely 
ye have received, freely give." These were to be their cre- 
dentials that men might know the power of the Truth and be- 
lieve that the kingdom of Heaven as Jesus taught was "nigh 
at hand." 

This commission which He gave to His disciples to pes? 
petuate His work on earth, to preach the gospel and heal the 
sick (for Jesus' gospel is a healing gospel) has never been 
withdrawn. It has nO' expiration clause ; it has lost none of its 
binding force and effect with the lapse of centuries; further- 
more, there is absolutely no authority for assuming that the 
Master's commission to preach and to heal meant that healing 
was to become a dead letter. To assume otherwise, as scholas- 
tic theology has done, is to fail to present Christianity in the 
fulness of the Gospel. The commission has the same divine 
authority as the Ten Commandments. It is universal in its 
application. There has been no abrogation of any of its pro- 
visions; nor is there any authority vested in any ecclesiastical 
court or body of men on earth, to annul that commission ; 
that prerogative belongs to God alone. Jesus' words were 
God's words. 

Whence, then, comes the authority for rejecting this plain 
command to His followers to heal the sick or for limiting the 
healing work of the church to the days of Jesus and the early 
apostles? By what right, may we ask, do the professional ex- 
pounders of the Scriptures accept that part of Jesus' commis- 
sion to preach the gospel, and reject that part which commands 
them to heal the sick? Jesus overcame all material obstacles 
that lay in His pathway, and demonstrated His ability to heal 
the sick and overcome death by the power of the divine Mind. 
When He directed His followers to go into all the world and 
preach His gospel to every creature and to perform those 
healing works which He did, He spoke by divine authority. 
And He spoke with equal authority when He declared that 

62 



JESUS' HEALING MINISTRY 

His followers should do even greater works than He had done. 

The record of Jesus' healing ministry, established by irre- 
fragable proofs, has in this day and age a deeper significance 
than in any previous century in the history of the church. The 
Christ-cure movement and its demonstration of the fact that 
spiritual remedies are of avail in the cure of the physical ills 
of mankind, directs attention anew to Jesus' command to all 
his true followers, to heal the sick and to accomplish even 
greater works of healing. The modus of cure is equally plain; 
the power /of God working through human instrumentality, in 
answer to^ the holy uplifting prayer of faith. 

The present possibility of restoring the lost healing function 
which was so distinguishing a feature of the early centuries of 
the Christian era, and which gave the church such an astonish- 
ing success, is in the very forefront of religious questions af- 
fecting the future of the church. And the testimony of the 
Scriptures, concerning the early Christians, is that "they went 
forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them 
and confirming the word with signs following." H these 
things be true of the early Christian church, how, or by what 
argument, can it be shown, that this healing power should be 
non-existent in the Christian church of to-day? 

Jesus explained to His followers the mighty power of faith, 
when backed by the energies of the divine Spirit, in terms be- 
fore which the church has stumbled and halted and hesitated 
ever since the first few centuries of the Christian era. He taught 
His followers faith, and strengthened that .faith by illustrations 
of God's omnipotence, which even to this day staggers Chris- 
tian behef. He assured His disciples that even if they had 
faith as a grain of mustard seed, they would be able to re- 
move m.ountains, and that nothing should be impossible to 
them. 

Jesus Christ declared that heaven and earth would pass 
away, but that His words should not. And they have not, 

63 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

though nineteen centuries have come and gone since they were 
first spoken. He taught as the great teacher of mankind. His 
words are words of absolute truths enduring unto all genera- 
tions. The mission of His followers, He announced in these 
words : "Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and 
ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit and 
that your fruit should remain; that whatsoever ye shall ask 
of the Father in My name He may give it to you." 

This promise He repeated afterwards in even more em- 
phatic form : "Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatsoever ye 
shall ask the Father in My name. He will give it you. Hitherto 
have ye asked nothing in My name: ask, and ye shall receive, 
that your joy may be full." At another time He told them : 
"li ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask 
what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." In making these 
statements he was addressing not merely the few disciples nor 
even the multitudes which met Him in His daily work. He 
was addressing humanity, else why should He say, "verily, 
verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on Me, the works that 
I do, shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he 
do"? 

Our responsibility to God is the responsibility to live in 
perfect harmony at every point as Jesus did. 

"Cast thyself upon the will of God and thou shalt become 
as God. For thou art God, if thy will be the divine will. This 
is the great secret — it is the mystery of redemption." 

Jesus knew that His unity with the Father was complete 
and therefore He could say: "I and the Father are one." But 
He identified His life with man's Hfe thus: "Neither pray I 
for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me 
through their word ; that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, 
art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us : that 
the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. And the glory 
which thou gavest Me I have given them ; that they might be 

64 



JESUS' HEALING MINISTRY 

one, even as We are one : I in them and Thou in me, that they 
may be made perfect in one." 

The ages waited for Jesus' words of Life and Truth and 
Love; words that are stirring in the spiritual consciousness of 
humanity as never before in the history of the race. Con- 
vinced of that essential unity of humanity and divinity, which 
Jesus exemplified as the ideal relation between God and man, 
the time is hastening when man will recognize the divinity 
within himself and become the "luminous dwelling place of 
God." This relationship vests him with a power in keeping 
with the dignity of his birth ; sooner or later he will rise to 
the full stature of manhood in Christ and reach the full fruition 
of that health and strength which is rightfully his. 



M 



VIII. 
INSUFFICIENCY OF MATERIAL REMEDIES 

MEDICINE as a profession had its origin in idolatrous 
ages. Its practitioners were pagan priests who sought 
the aid of the gods in their healing works. According to the 
history of "Four Thousand Years of Medicine,'' Apollo was the 
god of medicine and dictated the first prescription. Whether 
this had any connection with his subsequent fate is not in 
evidence ; however, he was banished from heaven and endured 
great sufferings on earth. Hippocrates is said to have turned 
from the image gods to vegetable and mineral drugs for heal- 
ing, and may be considered the father of materia medica. How 
successful medical practice has been may be judged from the 
fact that, according to good authority, 50,000,000 people die 
annually. Of this number the tremendous proportion of one- 
half die prematurely, chiefly because of the insufficiency of 
material means to cope with disease. 

Presumably all these people did what they could to keep 
alive and in health, with such help as the medical profession 
could render. In obedience to their advisers they have gulped 
down the animal, the vegetable and the mineral kingdoms 
piecemeal in the vain endeavor to keep body and soul together, 
which, as a hardened cynic has remarked, "had better be sep- 
arated." The rapid increase of diseases unknown to the pro- 
fession a few years ago ; the increase of drugs, specialists and 
trained nurses, is rapidly making sickness a luxury which can 
be indulged in only by the rich. Birth is expensive, disease is 
expensive; death is expensive. 

That hospitals and dispensaries do not lack for patronage 

66 



INSUFFICIENCY OF MATERIAL REMEDIES - 

is evident from the statistics given by Dr. Huber, who states 
that in 1895 out of a population of 1,800,000 in Manhattan, 
793,000 appear on the record as having sought medical aid. It 
is fair to say, however, that this large proportion is not only 
due to insufficiency of the remedies employed by materia 
medica, but to the unfavorable conditions, the squalor, con- 
gestion and poverty of the poor classes. The habit of going to 
the doctor for a prescription and of taking inanimate matter 
as a prevention of sickness, or for the cure of disease, is bred 
in the bones. It is one of the legacies of the ages. 

The extent of the drug habit may be judged from the fact 
that the wholesale and retail drug business has reached an enor- 
mous sum of $2GO,0'00,ooo per annum. To this colossal ex- 
penditure must be added the physician's fees for medical at- 
tendance. A well known American weekly states that the 
200,000 doctors in active practice in the United States, one for 
each four hundred people, collect in fees each year more than 
$150,000,000. Prescription bills and patent medicines enor- 
mously swell these colossal expenditures. 

An unfortunate thing about this outlay is that the effects 
upon the human system are largely a matter of experiment on 
the part of the physician. Drug experimentation is coincident 
with drug adulteration, and it is an even question which does 
the more harm. In combination the wonder is how the patient 
ever pulls through. Dean Henry A. Rusby, of the College of 
Pharmacy of Columbia University, the United States expert 
on the qualification of drugs entering the port of New York, 
and the National President of the American Pharmaceutical 
Association, states that an organized and powerful effort is 
being made to rob the United States Pharmacopoeia of stan- 
dard tests for strength and purity of drugs. Commercial 
interests are striving to prevent the introduction of further 
standards and to degrade still others. Certain physicians insist 
that drugs of which they disapprove, no matter how widely 

67 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

they are used in the prescriptions of the majority of the pro- 
fession, shall be thrust out of the book of standards, thus de- 
priving the government of the power of requiring definite 
gauges of purity and strength. 

"Eighty to ninety per cent of the drugs used in this country 
by physicians," says Dr. Rusby, come from foreign countries. 
Within the past two years enormous quantities of spurious and 
defective drugs have been rejected at the port of New York 
and other ports and reshipped to Europe. Drug warehouses 
at Trieste, Amsterdam, Hamburg and other important centres 
abroad are stuffed to overflowing v/ith these worthless medica- 
ments and with still greater quantities of drugs that have been 
withheld for shipment to the United States, out of the con- 
viction that they would be turned back. All these owners are 
waiting in the belief, encouraged by commercial interests on 
this side, that the United States Pharmacopoeia Book of Stan- 
dards will be so modified as to let down the bars of their 
admission. Without the standard which such a book provides, 
neither the medical nor the pharmaceutical profession can 
authoritatively identify, administer, compound or prescribe 
medicinal drugs for patients, nor can any legal authority en- 
force purity and definite degrees of strength. 

The figures already given are by no means the full m.easure 
of outlay in connection with the practice of medicine. There is 
the cost of maintenance of hospitals and clinics and of surgical 
instruments and appliances ; the expenditures for the education 
of these 200,000 doctors ; for text-books on surgery, anatomy, 
physiology and for medical works generally, bearing on the 
prevention and cure of disease. To finish a course of training 
in the medical schools, and to secure the required diploma, 
each student must spend on an average at least $500. For a 
m.edical profession which has a membership of 200.000, this 
means an outlay of Si 00.000.000, to which m.ust be added the 
expense of the physician's library, costing on an average of 

68 



INSUFFICIENCY OF MATERIAL REMEDIES 

$50, or $10,000,000 more. To this annual expenditure of 
$350,000,000 for drugs and medical attendance, $150,000,000 
must therefore be added. 

But this is not all that is involved in the problem of exter- 
minating physical ills. According to the 1906 statistics of the 
New York State Department of Health, 129,833 people died 
under medical treatment, a percentage of 17.3 a thousand of 
population for the entire state. Applied to our 90,000,000 peo- 
ple this ratio would mean that 1,557,000 persons die annually 
throughout the country. When a person dies, he has to have 
a decent burial ; that means an average expense of at least $100 
each, a total funeral bill of $155,700,000 per annum. 

If we accept the statement of medical authorities that one- 
half of the deaths are preventable, then the $77,850,000 funeral 
expenses of 1906 could have been saved and 778,500 people 
should be alive instead of in their graves. Sickness and death 
are expensive ; how to overcome them is a task of tremendous 
proportions in which every human being, rich or poor, high or 
low, young or old, has a vital interest. 

This enormous annual expenditure of $350,000,000 to 
$500,000,000 annually to maintain the medical profession, to 
keep alive and in health, argues an almost criminal ignorance 
of the laws of health, and racial indifference to the easily 
acquired means of preventing sickness, to say nothing of the 
insufficiency of material remedies, upon which dependence is 
placed for relief. Of the vast number who die annually, the 
majority doubtless used every possible means to avert death, 
notwithstanding the fact that they have been taught by priest 
and doctor alike, that sickness is legitimate, the natural con- 
comitant of one's earthly existence, the result of the operation 
of natural laws and therefore ordained of God, that it has its 
uses, that men die when their time comes and that humanity 
consequently has no alternative but to reconcile itself to an 
irresistible doom as best it can. 

69 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

From the standpoint of the materialist, the medical faculty 
and the clergy even, the human organism in case of sickness is 
considered and treated from a purely physical basis. The 
organs affected are deemed material, the remedies employed 
are material and medical procedures are based on that presump- 
tion. Both organs and medicine are regarded as physical or 
material, something that can be measured, weighed and ana- 
lyzed. The medicine is appHed to the affected part exteriorly 
or introduced into the system through the blood, which itself 
is material, in the hope that through its action changes of a 
favorable character will be made. 

How matter taken into the system is able to reach and 
affect diseased parts, or how it can stimulate or energize an in- 
active organ; how to determine the true nature of the disease 
or how to bring about a restoration to normal conditions, is 
purely guess-work. The physician has little or no true knowl- 
edge or understanding, or, at least, only the vaguest sort of 
theory as to how drugs affect the system or overcome disease. 
The most a doctor can do is to evolve a speculative scheme of 
medical treatment based upon assumptions or empirical in- 
vestigations. So far as any exact or scientific relation between 
the remedy employed and the cure effected in any given case is 
concerned, it is simply impossible to work out a satisfactory 
modus operandi. The effect of a given drug in a given case is 
indeterminate ; results vary with the patient. Drugs effective 
in one period of medical practice lose their power and in an- 
other period are either discarded or replaced with some other 
material. 

When medical aid fails to produce the desired results, the 
physician as a last resort falls back upon what is frequently 
termed "vis medicatriv naturae," the recuperative energy of 
nature. Why not resort to this in the first place? Would it 
not sound less scientific ? Ah ! would it not mean the highv/ay 
to the physician's vanishing point? 

70i 



INSUFFICIENCY OF MATERIAL REMEDIES 

The physician, it is to be hoped, is something better than 
a carpenter- tinker of the human body. The human organism 
is something more than a house; it is a machine. While the 
body as to its physical constituents may be weighed, and meas- 
ured, and analyzed, nevertheless, it pulses with life which can- 
not be analyzed and which no physician has ever seen. It bears 
small comparison to an inanimate structure which can be 
fashioned by human hands. A carpenter can build a house, but 
he cannot give it a personal identity, nor collect his bill if the 
house has no owner. He would make poor work trying to 
tinker the mechanism of the human body with tools unfitted to 
his task, forgetful of the fact that man is a sentient being, 
that the body has a life which has eluded the keenest search. 

The medical man may probe and cut and carve the human 
body with instruments of surgery, but he cannot suppress the 
fact that the functions of the body which he thus handles are 
dependent upon the tenant within. When the body is left by 
its occupant all the doctor can do is to make a post mortem 
examination. Its usefulness is gone; by no sleight-of-hand can 
he restore the old or provide a new tenant. 

I^.Iateria medica considers man a physical being. It is not 
merely non-Christian ; it is non-religious. Its literature is mate- 
rialistic, its members may be atheists and still be in good pro- 
fessional standing. Its materialistic practice proceeds from the 
theory that the physical organism when out of order is to be re- 
paired by the administration of medicine in various forms of 
mindless, inert matter. Overlooking the greatest factor in the 
universe, the fact that man can actually assume command of 
his own mysterious mechanism, materia medica vainly seeks by 
the use of drugs to stay the ravages of diseases due in the 
main to wrong functioning of the mind upon the body or, to 
put it in another form, it fails to give full significance to the 
superiority of the creative mind over the material organism of 
the creature or thing created. Medicine, with its bacteriology 

71 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

and serum therapy, its Roentgen rays and its organic chemistry, 
takes Httle note of the subtle relations between body and spirit, 
those wide realms in which the mind directly and powerfully 
affects the physical organism. 

Dr. Lewis stoutly insists that the business of the physician 
is to treat the body. To follow his advice is to ignore its 
occupant. Is it small wonder, therefore, that a materialistic 
profession, which can rise to no more than carpentering .or 
body tinkering, should find its material remedies so insufficient 
and inefficient as a means of staying the progress of disease. 
Serious attention may well be directed to these significant 
words of the eminent English scientist, Sir Oliver Lodge: 
"The more frankly and clearly the truth about the body is 
realized, namely that the body is a flowing and constantly 
changing episode in material history, having no more identity 
than has a river, no identity whatever in its material constitu- 
tion, but only in its form — identity only in the personal ex- 
pression or manifestation which is achieved through the agency 
of fresh and constantly differing sequence of material particles 
— the more frankly this is realized the better for our under- 
standing of most of the problems of life and being." And, 
we may add, those of materia medica. Still, while the body 
lasts it is most beautiful and useful and wonderful. 

The following question propounded by Sir Oliver is one 
which may properly be referred to the medical profession for 
answer : 

"What is it that puts the body together and keeps it active 
and retains it fairly constant through all the vicissitudes of 
climate, and condition, and through all the fluctuations of ma- 
terial constitution?" 

Notwithstanding that mental healing has demonstrated its 
successful ministry to the physical ills of mankind, authorities 
such as Dr. Lewis, Dr. Woods Hutchinson and Dr. Darlington, 
and other prominent authorities, still remain solidly materialis- 
tic in their professional work. 

72 



INSUFFICIENCY OF MATERIAL REMEDIES 

The theory at the base of mental therapeutics, viz. : that 
the body is under the control of the mind, Dr. Woods Hutchin- 
son combats vigorously in a recent magazine article, in which 
he declares it to be "one of the dearest delusions of man," and 
stoutly insists that man's most permanent control over his mind 
is obtainable by the modification of a bodily condition. "The 
field in which we modify bodily conditions by mental influ- 
ences," he claims, "is steadily shrinking ; all our substantial 
and permanent victories over bodily ills have been won by phy- 
sical means." Dr. Hutchinson goes even further and asserts 
that a large majority of the triumphs of science over mental 
and moral diseases have been secured through physical agencies 
alone. 

On the other hand. Dr. Sheldon Leavitt finds occasion to 
criticise rather sharply this pronounced materialism. The 
medical profession, he insists, is skimming the mere borders 
of the curative problem. "It is thoroughly imbued with mate- 
rialistic thought. To the man of surgery and drugs, of mas- 
sage and electricity, of vibration and light therapy, the brain 
is not the organ of the mind, but it is the mind itself, and 
thought is due to the cellular action. To him subconsciousness 
is only a realm of reflex phenomena. That there are other than 
the five senses, he denies. He pauses at the border of the 
physical realm to assert, 'here it all ends.' " 

Medical science is acknowledged to be an empirical and not 
an exact science. A physician gives what he has frequently 
followed in other cases by a cessation of the disease, and this 
in most instances is a matter of experimentation rather than of 
certainty. 

When medical skill has been exhausted and the patient dies, 
we are taught to believe that the result must be accepted as the 
operation of natural laws following the primal order of nature, 
the patient reconciling himself to his own demise, whether pre- 
maturely or otherwise, on the principle that it cannot be helped, 

73 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

the physician consoling himself from his standpoint with the 
reflection that all known means have been used, and that un- 
less he has failed in his duty, "the confidence of his intelligent 
patient will not be destroyed." 

So far as the medical profession itself is concerned, there 
is no finer body of men to be found anywhere. No men as a 
class are more willing to serve humanity or more ready to put 
aside personal aggrandizement in an almost passionate devo- 
tion and consecration to the task of alleviating the physical ills 
of mankind. Any hour of the twenty-four is the hour of duty 
to the faithful, conscientious physician. It makes no differ- 
ence whether the patient be rich or poor; whether the doctor 
gets five hours' sleep during the night or none at all ; the call 
for help is answered just the same. Nor is there a more stu- 
dious body of men to be found in any profession. In research 
and experimentation, in studies in bacteriology and pathology, 
in the laboratory, in practical experience with disease, there is 
an earnest concentration of endeavor on the part of the med- 
ical scientist to ascertain the source of physical maladies, and 
to employ the remedies that will effect a cure and thus stay the 
ravages of disease. In the cHnic, in hospital ward, are to be 
found heroes who knowingly face death through contagion 
that they may, perchance, discover a way to overthrow a dread 
disease, to add to the knowledge of the profession concerning 
the nature and the methods that will most expeditiously stay 
its ravages. 

Nevertheless, disease and death continue their work with 
increasing effectiveness, notwithstanding the fact that the bat- 
tle against it is vigorously waged. The struggle begins with 
birth and ends only when death closes the mortal career of the 
patient; and the pitiful thing is, it is always a losing fight — 
diseases multiply, death intervenes despite all the doctors 
can do. 

However brilliant the achievements, however high the 

74 



INSUFFICIENCY OF MATERIAL REMEDIES 

attainments, however eminent the services of the medical 
profession to sufifering humanity, however energetic, self-sac- 
rificing and faithful physicians are or may have been, the 
painful fact remains that half the number of people who die 
every year die "prematurely." This result cannot be attribu- 
ted to lack of strenuous endeavor on the doctor's part ; it must 
be ascribed to the inadequacy of the material remedies 
employed. 

The conflicting methods of treatment in the different 
schools of medicine and the lack of unity among physicians of 
the same school prove that these systems are not founded upon 
exact science or fixed principle, and because of this people are 
seeking for something more reliable in their hour of need. 
Public opinion is changing, and the physician is no longer the 
court of last resort in the matter of human health. 



7S 



IX. 

ATTITUDE OF THE CLERGY TOWARDS CHRISTIAN 
HEALING AND CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 

THE Rev. Charles Cuthbert Hall, in his book "Does God 
Send Trouble?" vigorously controverts the conception or 
orthodox belief that sickness and death are the will of God. 
He makes this significant statement : "I have laboriously and 
freshly examined every single passage in the New Testament 
bearing upon the subject of God's will, and I have also exam- 
ined freshly every single passage in the New Testament bearing 
upon suffering and affliction. I fail to find one which warrants 
the belief that sickness and death are the will of God, sent 
directly by His hand upon us. If sickness and suffering are 
according to the will of God, then every physician is a law- 
breaker, every trained nurse is defying the will of God, every 
hospital is a house of rebellion instead of a house of mercy. 
All the conditions which increase suffering and breed sickness 
are therefore fulfillments of the will of God, and sanitation is 
blasphemy. This tradition quickly reasons itself out into im- 
possibility. The only absolutely logical holders of it are those 
who accepting God's will, refuse to employ medical aid for 
their sick children and the civil law has now made that refusal 
a crime." 

The conclusion that God either sends the pain, suffering and 
sin, or that, being a witness of the untold agonies of His 
children, He refuses to alleviate this suffering, presents the 
spectacle of the source of all good creating His own opposites, 
of good creating evil, a divine paradox insulting as well as re- 
volting to our intelligence. As to His sending misery as a pun- 

76 



ATTITUDE OF THE CLERGY 

ishment for certain misdeeds, it is the weakest argument of all. 
What could one think of a human father who would calmly 
watch the speechless agony of his loved ones without a thought 
to help them ? Such callousness on the part of the God whO' is 
love is beyond comprehension. But if, for argument's sake, we 
assume that God sent sickness into the world as chastisement, 
what right has the physician to oppose the will of God? 

Humanity has not hesitated to grasp at every possible 
means it could imagine or devise to avert death or delay its 
approach. The physician, the legislator, the workers in our 
various philanthropic enterprises have all labored to this end. 
The vast array of asylums, the life-saving stations, the protec- 
tion of those engaged in hazardous occupations, are so many 
endeavors on the part of mankind to circumvent death. All 
this would constitute officious interference with God's plan if 
God had instituted death as the gateway to heaven; and it 
would keep millions out of heaven in consequence. 

The materialistic attitude of the church towards Christian 
healing is fairly well expressed by Rev. Dr. Buckley, editor of 
the Christian Advocate, the official organ of the Methodist 
Church : 

"When a thoroughly educated, experienced and competent 
physician or surgeon fails to preserve the life of a non-resist- 
ing and co-operating patient, he has brought to bear upon the 
case all that the human race has accumulated of knowledge, 
remedies, appliances, supports and hygienic methods, and in 
this case, they, and not he alone, have failed." 

Dr. Buckley, however, finds some hope for humanity in the 
fact that millions of the common people and of those in frontier 
and scattered regions, in shipwreck, in time of war, and pes- 
tilence, have been able to ward off disease or recover from its 
effects, without medical aid; the "vis medicatrix naturae" 
bringing them through ; all of which is strikingly suggestive of 
a saying of Dr. Mason Good, a learned professor in London: 
"The effects of medicine on the human system are in the high- 

77 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

est degree uncertain ; except, indeed, that it has already de- 
stroyed more Hves than war, pestilence and famine combined." 

The opinion of the clergy, in the main, is that the practice 
of medicine should be left to those who have made the diagno- 
sis and treatment of disease their life study and profession. 
The duty of the clergy we are told is to sympathize in sorrow, 
and in joy, and to help in the bearing of burdens, to cheer, 
comfort, strengthen and reinforce every effort put forth by 
the medical profession to deliver the sufferer from physical ail- 
ments. 

The acknowledgment is made that God has almighty power ; 
that He is a very present help in time of trouble — but in case 
of sickness, the Christian is told to rely upon drugs, as if 
senseless matter has more power than omnipotent Spirit. 
According to the accepted clerical construction, the true func- 
tion of the ministry, as under shepherds of the church, is to 
teach the ethical and spiritual doctrines of Christianity. All 
else the pastor should leave to the physician, even though the 
medical profession is soHdly materialistic and pays little or no 
attention to anything outside of physical structure. In this re- 
spect Dr. Buckley is in accord wdth Dr. Aked, who declares that 
Christianity is purely ethical, its object being to make good men 
and women of us all. 

The attitude of the clergy towards Jesus' healing works is 
variously expressed. Many clergymen contend that Jesus did 
not institute miraculous (so-called) healing as a continuous 
system. Other clergymen claim that Christian healing be- 
longed to the first century of the Christian era, that this power 
was supernatural and was meant to be confined to the apostolic 
period, a conclusion which it is claimed "the verdict of history" 
confirms, notwithstanding the fact that on two occasions, Christ 
Jesus, speaking not to the disciples, but for all time, declared 
that those who believe on Him would be able to do the works 
that He did by the Spirit of God. "If we declare that the age 

78 



ATTITUDE OF THE CLERGY 

of miracles is past," asks a recent writer, ''when by miracles 
we mean the works and acts of God, what are we doing? We 
are rejecting the all-power, the all-presence, the all-knowledge 
and unchangeableness of God, repudiating and denying His 
Christ and so shattering the very foundations of our boasted 
Christianity." 

Dr. Robert McDonald declared that the healing of the sick 
must be made a regular, recognized department of the church 
work; nevertheless we find in his book "Mind, Religion and 
Health," this astonishing statement, which throws cold water 
on the whole proposition : "It is a very serious question as to 
hov/ deep and far-reaching a diseased condition in the human 
body can be divinely restored to health." This question, he 
declares, "may be for long an open question, with intelligent 
advocates on either side of the tremendous issue." This is 
paralleled by the Rev. Dr. Leighton Parks, who refers to the 
case of the apostle Paul, who sought relief from what this dis- 
tinguished clergyman terms an incurable disease. According 
to Dr. Parks, the best that God could do under the circum- 
stances was to supply sustaining grace, thus limiting Omnipo- 
tence and placing God in the humiliating position of inability to 
rectify those abnormal physical conditions which medical 
science in its wisdom ( ?) has pronounced incurable. That 
we may not do Dr. Parks an injustice, we quote the passage as 
found in his address in St. Bartholomew's church, delivered 
some months ago : 

"Paul's experience deserves much study nowadays. For 
this thing — this thorn in the flesh — 'I besought the Lord thrice, 
that it might depart from me :' And he said, 'My grace is suf- 
ficient for thee ; for my strength is made perfect in weakness.' 
This, stated in modern language, means that Paul had an in- 
curable disease, but that God's power would uphold him until 
his work was done." 

In general terms, these distinguished expounders of the 

79 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

healing gospel of Christ beHeve in the almighty power of God 
as taught by the creeds of the church; in a Supreme Being 
with whom all things are possible, and /'who sent His word 
and healed" ; but they seem disposed to limit His healing ability 
and to regard Omnipotence as powerless on occasions — as, for 
instance, the so-called incurable diseases of the medical schools. 

It would be no less irrational to think that God could con- 
nive at wickedness as that it would be to think that law could 
be guilty of crime, or that sickness, like evil in the vulgar jest in 
the play, "might be offensive, but blended with the whole it 
heightened the general effect; that it was here to train char- 
acter and to be finally transmuted into good."^ 

In the present theological conception of the status of evil, 
this may be taken as something more than a jest; it amounts 
in fact to an affirmation that there are limits to divine power 
which could as Httle keep men free from moral evil as from 
physical disease. "When one recalls," says John B. Willis, "the 
part which the belief of evil has played in the tragedy of mortal 
experience and the universal longing to escape the suffering, 
which always attends its reign, it is not difficult to accept the 
statement that in the course of human history more sacrifices 
have probably been made and more prayers offered to the devil 
than to God." 

"The healing work of the church in the early centuries of 
the Christian era," says Dr. EUwood Worcester, "had a most 
powerful influence on church life and custom and was an in- 
fluential factor in the Christian propaganda. One cause of the 
present weakness of the church is that it has maintained the 
Christian religion, retaining with some degree of faith Christ's 
message to the soul, but rejecting with unbelief His ministry 
to the body." And he adds, in a fine burst of enthusiasm : 
"Armed with the resources of modern science, and especially 
of modern psychological science" [presumably hypnotism, 
hypnotic suggestion and psychic influence] "inspired with the 

^"l\larcus Anrelius." VI-42. 

80 



ATTITUDE OF THE CLERGY 

enthusiasm of humanity" [which he considers the grand legacy 
bequeathed to the church by the founders of the faith] "the 
church to-day should be able to outdo the healing wonders of 
the apostolic and post-apostolic ages." 

On the other hand, Dr. Buckley regards this as an amazing 
utterence, and questions whether it is the fruit of an intense 
faith or a fevered imagination. Dr. Worcester is a step in 
advance of his clerical brethren on the subject of healing. The 
Emmanuel clinic, of which he is the founder, is an attempted 
combination of the clerical and the medical professions; an 
effort to divide up the practice of the healing art, organic dis- 
ease to be taken care of by the physicians and functional dis- 
orders by the Emmanuel clinic. 

Any attempt to regain the lost element of healing and to 
aid the church fulfil its mission to both body and soul, or, in 
other words, to make Christianity what it was in the beginning, 
a response to the physical as well as the spiritual needs of 
humanity, is worthy of all commendation. But why circum- 
scribe the Holy One of Israel through unbelief? Why sub- 
stitute hypnotic suggestion for Jesus' divine therapeutics? 
Why limit the healing power of the gospel to functional dis- 
eases on the theory that these can be successfully handled by 
psycho-therapeutic procedures, conducted upon a so-called 
purely scientific basis, with religion as a side attachment? Is 
humanity to join with John Stuart Mill and conclude that "on 
the whole God is benevolently inclined, but is thwarted in His 
purpose"? Is it to consider matter as a power in and of itself 
and thus leave the Creator out of His own universe? Or is 
it to regard God as the creator of matter, and thus not only 
hold Him accountable for all physical and moral disasters, but 
declare Him as the source of such calamities, and thus con- 
vict Him of establishing and maintaining perpetual misrule 
under the guise of natural law? 



81 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

II. 

The church, although commissioned by its founder to heal 
the sick by spiritual means, is faithless to its trust. It is still 
in the position of having relegated that work to a solidly mate- 
rialistic medical profession, more or less atheistic. Jesus' heal- 
ing ministry is admitted ; likewise the healing power which He 
conferred upon the disciples, but the church has without just 
warrant restricted this healing function to the church of Apos- 
tolic days. And this is its answer to the sick and suffering 
who look to it for the exercise of the heahng power of the 
Gospel, unless we except the Emmanuel clinic and its offer of 
animal magnetism or hypnotism as a substitute for Christ's 
divine therapeutics. The unbelief of the clergy of the present 
day as to the present possibility of Christian heahng is not 
less pronounced than the unbelief of the Jewish hierarchy and 
of the Scribes and Pharisees in Jesus' time. Small wonder 
that so-called orthodox Christianity is decadent when minis- 
ters of the gospel, who assert belief in the omnipotence of God 
and are commissioned to preach the healing gospel of the 
Christ, and to do even greater works of healing than Jesus 
did, profess to find a tremendous issue in the question as to 
how far-reaching a diseased condition in the human body can 
be divinely restored to health! 

The Scribes declared that Jesus had a devil and cast out 
devils by the prince of devils. That He should profess to cast 
them out by the Spirit of God was to them sheer blasphemy. 
Because He said that God was His Father they sought to slay 
Him. They complained that He not only received sinners and 
ate with them, but that He was a friend to both publicans and 
sinners. When they could not disprove His cures, they said 
He was not of God because He healed on the Sabbath day; 
that He was a sinner, a Samaritan, a glutton, a wine bibber and 
a deceiver of the people. 

Similar scepticism and opposition prevail to-day among the 

82 



ATTITUDE OF THE CLERGY 

clergy in reference to the present availability of healing by the 
power of the divine Mind or the Spirit of God. One of the 
greatest hindrances to Christian healing is the efforts of the 
ministers to discount, limit, and explain away the healing pro- 
mise and power of the word of God as contained in the New 
Testament. The revelation of God as an active healing pres- 
ence in the world is Jesus' gospel, and no man can apprehend 
and preach that gospel without preaching it as a healing gospel. 
The failure to do so weakens the faith of the people in its 
healing efficacy, creates an atmosphere of doubt and antag- 
onism and drives thousands to medicine, surgery or hypnotic 
suggestion for which no authority obtains in Jesus' statement : 
"The Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works." Jesus 
placed no limitation upon his healing ability or that of His 
disciples who acquired the same power. "All power is given 
Me in heaven and in earth." 

The Rev. Charles F. Aked closes a brilliant series of articles 
on the "Salvation of Christianity" with these words: "The 
truth which Jesus taught is fresh with the eternal youth fulness 
of God. In the acceptance of it and the appropriation of it and 
the application of it, to the necessity of our time, lies the sal- 
vation of Christianity and the hope of the world."^ And 
fresh with the eternal youthfulness of God, are the words the 
Great Teacher uttered in those solemn hours when His earthly 
ministry was finished and He was about to say farewell to His 
followers: "Go ye into all the world and preach, saying, the 
kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the 
lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils ; freely ye have received, 
freely give." 

The truth which Jesus proclaimed covered spiritual and 
physical needs alike. His healing ministry to suffering human- 
ity, burdened by sin and disease, demonstrated God's power to 
meet every human need in sickness and in health. This heal- 

^Appleton's Magazine. 

83 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

ing ministry Jesus committed to His followers for all time. 
And in the acceptance of this gospel with its healing message, 
in its appropriation and application to human need, is to be 
found the deliverance of the race from bondage to disease and 
death. The question, therefore, may well be raised, "Shall 
Christianity continue recreant to its trust, and are other 
hands to take up and carry forward Jesus' healing mission to 
humanity?" 

Attitude Toward Christian Science 

The attitude the clergy assume towards Christian healing 
makes perfectly intelligible their attitude towards Chris- 
tian Science. The natural tendency of that movement is to 
weaken the standing and influence of the clergy as a class or 
profession. The teachings of orthodox preachers on the sub- 
ject of Christian healing, when contrasted with the healing 
work actually accomplished by Christian Science practitioners 
through spiritual means, is constantly impressing the inconsist- 
ency of their position upon the minds of people generally. On 
top of this fact is another fact which explains why the clergy 
are so bitter in their denunciations of Christian Science. One 
of the teachings of Christian Science is that no clerical inter- 
mediaries are necessary in the transmission of prayer from man 
to God. It has in fact no use for theological middlemen, either 
to offer formal and lengthy prayers or to deliver elaborate ora- 
tions on religious topics at its Sunday services. Its teaching 
and practice obviously strikes a blow at all clerical occupants 
and threatens to do away entirely in time with their calling. 

The priesthood and the ministerial class have the keenest 
realization of this, and while they think themselves perfectly 
honest in taking a trenchant stand against Christian Science, it 
is believed to be an undoubted fact that they are either con- 
sciously or unconsciously influenced by the economic aspect 
which attends the loss of members due to the spread of the 

84 



ATTITUDE OF THE CLERGY 

Christian Science movement and by irritation at the increasing 
weakness of their hold upon the people. 

The consequence of this decline in power is better seen in 
England than here. There the Episcopal Church is a state in- 
stitution and has certain notable legal powers. It is more than 
bitterly fighting the Christian Science movement. Not only 
is it denouncing Christian Science, but it is using its whole 
power to suppress as much as possible this movement which 
presents the results Jesus declared characterize an understand- 
ing of His teachings. One of the many weapons of warfare 
the church uses is in the influencing of newspapers and period- 
icals against publishing Christian Science communications. 

In America, where church and state are separate, the oppo- 
sition of the orthodox churches is not so compact or central- 
ized. But it is nevertheless active. Each theological body or 
each separate minister proceeds on its or his own account. 

The interests of the ministerial class are reflected in the 
prejudicial stand taken by the religious publications — that is to 
say, the periodicals representing some particular denomination. 
The editors of these publications cannot be termed deliberately 
dishonest, in the sense that any venal motives animate them. 
But that they are, as a rule, intellectually dishonest is clear 
from their refusal to present more than their own side of the 
controversy. Of course, allowances must be made for the fact 
that ministers are accustomed to stating their views dogmat- 
ically and without chance of contradiction from the pulpit. 
This ex cathedra habit becomes second nature. Viewing the 
question in a large way, however, there is no doubt that the real 
explanation at the basis for the virulence of some of these de- 
nominational periodicals is one arising from the conscious 
knowledge of the decay of the orthodox churches and the ad- 
vent of a new order wherein the ministerial class once so pow- 
erful will either be greatly subordinated or gradually pass out 
of existence. 

85 



fatt 2 



y 



''And so the Word had breath, and wrought 
With human hands the creed of creeds 
In holiness of perfect deeds, 

More strong than all poetic thought." 



"Think of spiritual results : 
Sure as the earth swims through the heavens, does 
Every one of its effects pass into spiritual results." 



JESUS CHRIST AND THE TRADITIONALISTS. « 

I. 

IN the time of Jesus there were two classes of rehgionists, 
viz. : the priests and the scribes, each having a traditional 
idea of the religious life. In the eyes of the priest the great 
factor of religion was the Temple with its worship and priest- 
hood. *Tn the temple God was to be found; the way into His 
presence was through His priests. The method of winning 
His favor or obtaining pardon was by their sacrifices. The 
holy man was the man who came often to the Temple and 
made generous use of its priesthood, places, articles and modes 
of worship. Worship conducted by authorized persons within 
the sacred place and in the established way became the very 
essence of religion, and the priests themselves are our wit- 
nesses as to how complete their ceremonial had swallowed up 
God's moral law."^ 

The scribe held an idea which, while different in some re- 
spects, was akin to that of the priests. His religion was made 
up of rules, constituted by regulations as to the doing and 
ordering of the sensuous things of life. He laid great stress 
upon fasts and alms and was scrupulously exact in the ob- 
servance of days, months, and seasons, times, modes of prayer. 
He found great merit in phylacteries and in the reading of the 
Scriptures ; he was devoutly loyal to the written law formed by 
ancient custom; the decisions of the great Synagogue or coun- 
cil of the church and the wisdom of the fathers were control- 
ling in the religious life which he lived. So the holy man 

^"Catholicism : Roman and Anglican," page 22^. 

.89 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

forgot no sacred day or solemn time, neglected no fast, gave 
alms of all he had, prayed by book, worshipped according to 
rule, and otherwise toiled and comported himself as became a 
man who lived by a written and traditional code. They were 
excellent men ; honest, scrupulous, faithful in the minutest 
things, only they were forgetful of the deeper fact that the 
kingdom and truth of God is infinitely wider than their law. 

Jesus had an ideal of religion which was in sharp antithesis 
to that of both priest and scribe, so much so, indeed, that He 
was unintelligible to both and was regarded and treated by 
both as an absolute enemy. 'Tn the eyes of the scribe He was 
a religious alien standing outside the community and catholicity 
of Jewish religion and doctrine; in the eyes of the priest, He 
broke the unity of the order and worship established of old by 
God, consecrated by law and custom, possessed of divine 
authority, the very symbol of the natural life and condition of 
the people's well-being. When He visited their city the priests 
could not understand him, for His temple and worship were 
spiritual. His God was a Father who did not need incense and 
sacrifice and burnt-oflerings to become propitious towards men. 
And so men knew not what to do with Him, knew only how to 
hate Him and how to glut their hate by compassing His death 
on the cross on the combined charge of heresy and treason. 

*'In the province where He lived, Jesus met the Pharisees 
and the scribes, whose relations to Him were a radical contra- 
diction and fretful collision proceeding from their fanatical 
devotion to the traditions of the fathers and their consequent 
inability to understand His spirit and His truth. In His 
daily and familiar life, scribe and Pharisee found none of the 
customary signs of religion — fasting, alms, the phylactery, 
stated forms, times and places for prayer, ceremonial cleanli- 
ness, punctilious observance of the Sabbath law and customs ; 
nay, they not only found these absent, but a conduct which 
seemed studiously to offend — kindly speech to Gentiles, asso- 

90 



JESUS CHRIST AND THE TRADITIONALISTS 

ciation with publicans and sinners, unheard-of liberty allowed 
to his disciples and claimed for himself on the Sabbath. 

"And the right to do all this he vindicated by the denial of 
the authority of tradition and the elders and by the assertion of 
his own. It was to these scrupulous and conscientious men, 
all very sad, even awful; and so they judged Him a profane 
person acting from no other purpose or motive than to destroy 
the law and the prophets."^ 

Because they thus judged Jesus, the scribes and priests and 
Pharisees pronounced Him a blasphemer and declared that He 
was possessed of a devil and in league with Beelzebub, the 
Prince of the Devils. They charged Him with being a Sabbath 
breaker, because He healed sick people on the Sabbath. They 
charged His disciples with violating the Sabbath, because they 
gathered and ate ears of corn on that day, and with transgress- 
ing the tradition of the elders because they ate with unwashed 
hands. They questioned the authority Jesus had for doing His 
healing works ; sought to stone Him because of His teachings, 
and denied His claims to the Messiahship. Bigoted, debauched, 
hypocritical themselves, they nevertheless called Him a wine- 
bibber and a glutton; inveighed against Him because he ate 
with publicans and sinners and watched Him constantly to find 
occasion whereby they might deliver Him to the power of the 
governor. 

The severest invective and denunciation, the bitterest terms 
of reproach and rebuke, the sharpest words of reproof, "words 
that burst forth from His heart swelling into terrific climax," 
Jesus used to excoriate these self-made scribes, Pharisees and 
priests, betrayers of the people. The most terrible woes ever 
uttered by human lips Jesus pronounced against these greedy, 
self-seeking religionists and traditionalists : 

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye 
shut up the kingdom of heaven against men Woe 

^"Catholicism : Roman and Anglican," page 26. 

m 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye devour 
widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers ; there- 
fore ye shall receive the greater damnation. Woe unto you, 
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for 3^e compass sea and land 
to make one proselyte ; and when he is made, ye make him two- 
fold more the child of hell than yourselves. Woe unto you, ye 
blind guides, which say, whosoever shall swear by the gold of 

the temple, he is a debtor ! Woe unto you scribes and 

Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and 
cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law — 
judgment, mercy and faith. Ye blind guides, who strain at a 
gnat and swallow a camel. Woe unto you, scribes and 
Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the 
cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and 
excess. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for 
ye are like unto whited sepulchres which indeed appear beauti- 
ful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones and of all 
uncleanness. 

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! because 
ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres 
of the righteous. And say, if we had been in the days of our 
fathers we would not have been partakers with them in the 
blood of the prophets. \\'herefore, ye be witnesses unto your- 
selves, that ye are the children of them which killed the 
prophets — ^Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye 
escape the damnation of hell ?" 

Oppressed by conflicting emotions, which now arouse and 
now depress Him, foreseeing His rejection at their hands and 
the tragic fate of the Jewish nation, Jesus passed from right- 
eous denunciation to sorrowful lament, the sadness and pathos 
of which has not ceased echoing through the ages : "O Jerusa- 
lem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them 
that were sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy 
children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under 
her wing and ye would not. Behold ! your house is left unto 
you desolate." 

Jesus stood in relation to His times as a social and religious 
reformer, in conflict with the established order. His teachings 

92 



JESUS CHRIST AND THE TRADITIONALISTS 

carried to their legitimate conclusion, threatened the order of 
the Temple and the doctrine of -the synagogue. The right of 
the priest to represent God and rule men He not only ques- 
tioned, but denied, and so in the eyes of the Jewish hierarchy 
He assailed the very foundations of society. In spite of Him- 
self He became a political personage. The people were aroused 
to a state of expectancy because of the mighty works He did, 
and were ready to hail Him as the Messiah of Scripture. His 
influence over the populace was illustrated and intensified by 
His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. 

In strong contrast to Jesus, stands Caiaphas, the high priest, 
a Sadducee, an aristocrat in family, an authority in the state, 
"with the instincts and habits of the ruler, controlled by the 
mind and exercised in the manner of the ecclesiastic." The 
head of the Jewish church, he was the most masterful spirit in 
the Jewish council, who could command the storm aroused by 
the miracles which Jesus performed, especially the raising of 
Lazarus from the dead, and which was followed by Jesus' entry 
into Jerusalem amid the acclaim of the populace. And how did 
Caiaphas meet the issue at an hour when the safety of the 
Jewish hierarchy, the national religion, and the nation itself 
seemed to the Jewish Sanhedrin to be at stake? 

One may readily imagine this high-born ecclesiastic, in a 
tone of imperious scorn, declaring the safety of the nation to be 
the supreme law and that the Sanhedrin must not allow it to 
be imperilled by the frenzy of the people, which was but a tem- 
porary outburst easily kindled and readily quenched. To smite 
the Hero of the Populace would be to still the popular clamor. 
**For consider that it is expedient for us that one man should 
die for the people and that the whole nation perish not."^ 

How many of the church dignitaries of our times, men of 
sagacious intellect, wise in all manner of religious statecraft 
and high in the councils of the church, had they been members 

^John II :5o. 

93 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

of the Jewish Sanhedrin, would have opposed the condemna- 
tion and death of Jesus which Caiaphas advised ? Were Jesus 
present as man among men in this age to threaten the suprem- 
acy of the priesthood of the Roman CathoHc Church or of the 
ministerial class of the Protestant churches, or the overthrow 
of cherished church dogmas and doctrines and traditions; if 
His teachings meant the loss of power and influence on the 
part of ruling religious hierarchies and their final extinction; 
if the ecclesiastics of this age had the power of Hfe and death 
as did the constituted church authorities of the fourteenth and 
fifteenth centuries, would they do less than the Jewish author- 
ities did when Jesus was present among them ? 

Now, when so few pretend to believe in dogma and to fol- 
low tradition, when creed and dogma and traditionalism in the 
church are fast forcing the best men out, and, as a prominent 
theologian has well said, are fast making the church "an asylum 
for drones and imbeciles," what lesson has all this for a de- 
cadent Christianity which misinterprets the spirit and truth 
of its great Founder In an age when the rich are in the 
churches and nearly all the poor are outside; when organized 
Christianity has no message for the common people, no vision 
of social justice, no faith in the healing gospel of Christ, is it 
any wonder that the church is fast losing its power to maintain 
the allegiance of its followers? Do not the religious radicalism 
and conservatism of to-day find their suggestion in the Sad- 
ducee and the Pharisee of Jesus' time? 

"The Christian church," says Dr. George A. Gordon, "has 
never laid this truth to heart, indeed it may be said that the 
church has never seen it. It was against a flippant heterodoxy 
that Jesus spoke his parable of the good Samaritan; it was 
against the pride and inhumanity of the same class that the 
Master made his defense of his interest in publicans and sin- 
ners, in the parables of the lost sheep, the lost drachma, and the 
lost son. The peril of current liberalism is great; the peril is 

m 



JESUS CHRIST AND THE TRADITIONALISTS 

vastly greater of a morally obtuse and consequential conserva- 
tism, confident that it holds the truth, the whole truth, and 
nothing but the truth." 

Would Jesus Christ, if He were personally present in this 
age, love tradition any more than He did centuries ago ? Would 
He less fearlessly denounce religious hypocrisy? Would He 
be less ready to warn His followers against greed and avarice, 
or wealth allied with selfishness, pride and inhumanity? Would 
He hesitate to whip tyranny, pride and vain traffic in worldly 
policy out of the temple? Would not the ecclesiastics of this 
age denounce Him as a dangerous demagogue, as a religious 
alien, a blasphemer and political agitator, who, forsooth, was 
disturbing the peace of the nation and attempting to destroy 
the established order of things and who, therefore, was deserv- 
ing of political exile or of imprisonment and death? 

If Jesus were here among men, would He less resolutely 
oppose the traditions and religious formalism of the churches 
of the present day, or any less fearlessly denounce the pride of 
priesthood no less marked in this day than it was in the days 
of the Jewish hierarchy ? Would the theological and ritualistic 
ecclestiasticism of the churches, the stately worship ©f temple 
or cathedral find any more favor in His eyes now than in the 
days of Jewish traditionalism and the ceremonial worship and 
sensuous sanctities of the Temple at Jerusalem? And if Jesus 
should appear, as He did 1900 years ago, would He find the 
religionists and traditionalists, the priests and scribes of this 
age, any the less His inveterate enemies, and the less bitterly 
opposed to His teachings or healing works, or less cruel in their 
opposition to Him than were the priests and scribes of the 
Jewish chtirch? Would they not even deny Him the rights of 
humanity if he entertained any other sense of being and re- 
ligion than theirs? 

Not only Pharisees, priests and scribes, but Herodians and 
Sadducees declared that Jesus belonged to the ranks of the 

95 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

common people. They were united in their beHef that whoever 
thought differently was deceived. His own home condemned 
Him, "for out of Galilee cometh no prophet." What grant 
have we for believing that the ecclesiastical authorities of this 
age would be any the less ready to follow the example of the 
Jewish hierarchy in their opposition to his claims as the 
Messiah ? 

If Jesus were present in physical form to condemn the gen- 
erations of this age as wicked and adulterous, seeking the mate- 
rial rather than the spiritual; if He spared not the sternest re- 
buke and reproof of all forms of tyranny, pride, intolerance, 
bloodshed and ecclesiastical and industrial despotism; if He 
hesitated not to condemn all forms of selfishness, greed, 
avarice, chicanery and corruption, whether in corporation, 
municipality, state or nation; if He feared not to denounce 
those high in position, whose wealth had been gained by un- 
righteous means; if He were to inveigh against the social evils 
of our times, the falsehood, envy, hate and depravity of 
society; if social position or church affiliation weighed not 
more in His mind than when He taught and wrought among 
the hills, and valleys of Judea for the deHverance of mankind 
from bondage to sin, disease, suffering and mortality; if He 
were to seek to clarify the vision of men, confused by the 
dazzling glow of material success and to rekindle the fires of 
religious enthusiasm, let me ask in all plainness of speech, 
would those who claim to be the constituted guardians of the 
church be any the less opposed to Him than were the chief 
priests and scribes and Pharisees of nineteen centuries ago ? 

Would people to-day apprehend any more clearly than did 
the Jewish religionists His spiritual nature as the Son of God, 
or would His healing work through the power of the spirit 
of God evoke any less denial, ingratitude and betrayal than it 
did in the sensual age in which He first appeared among men ? 
The carnal mind of the Jews was at enmity with Jesus' claim 

^86 



JESUS CHRIST AND THE TRADITIONALISTS 

of oneness with the Father. Their thoughts were filled with 
mortal opposition to God's spiritual idea, as presented by 
Christ Jesus. Would this age discern Jesus' spiritual origin 
any more clearly than did the Jews of 1900 years ago? Would 
there be less warfare between the true idea of God, which 
Jesus taught and embodied, and perfunctory religion ; between 
spiritual clear-sightedness and the blindness of popular belief 
now than when He was upon earth? 

Would He be accorded any different treatment by the tra- 
ditionalists, the priests and the scribes of our times, than that 
which He received from the Rabbis of the Jewish church when 
He began His earthly career? Or would He respect in a lesser 
or a greater degree the scholastic theology, the doctrines, 
dogmas and traditions of the churches of our day than when 
He taught among the hills and valleys of Galilee? Would He 
concern Himself with the differences of polity, ritual, or vary- 
ing forms of worship ; with sacerdotal and ecclesiastical organ- 
ization or the absolutism of the Roman church? Would He 
lend countenance to the sectarianism and schism of organized 
Christianity; to the disputes as to apostoHc succession, the 
validity of ministerial orders, or the primacy of St. Peter, and 
would He sanction reHgious intolerance, pride, bigotry and ex- 
clusiveness any more now than He did the traditionalism and 
the ceremonial of the Jewish church? 

Would He not be just as ready as in the days when He 
wrought and taught among the common people in the land of 
Palestine, to declare that the Truth, which He came to bring, 
would make men free, and to insist that new wine should be put 
in new bottles? Would not His coming inevitably mean the 
establishment of a new religious order patterned after his 
ideals and endued with His spirit and truth? And if so, would 
it be based on the AngHcan Church doctrine that those mem- 
bers of a well known sect, which deny both baptism and the 
Lord's supper, are altogether external to His fold, and no mat- 

97 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

ter what may be their benevolences they must be considered to 
be unchristian, mere heathens, except in knowledge; or would 
His doctrine be the same as in the days of His ministry among 
the Jews — "whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is 
in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother"? 

H Jesus were here the second time in physical form, would 
He not gather about Him as in the days of the Jewish hier- 
archy, a body of true disciples to whom His unfilled commis- 
sions of nineteen centuries ago would be repeated — "And as ye 
go, preach saying, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal 
the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils" ? 

The Jewish church was superseded by the Christian church. 
Will not the second coming of Christ, whether it be in human 
form or incarnated in the hearts of men, most surely mean that 
institutional or organized Christianity must give place to a 
new religious order whose unity of faith, simplicity of worship, 
missionary activity and healing power shall correspond to that 
which Jesus' disciples established in the beginning of the Chris- 
tian era? 

Jury of the Vicinage, consider of your verdict. 



96 



II. 

A NEW RELIGIOUS ORDER. 
I. 

DURING recent centuries the great Roman Church has 
not only lost its temporal sovereignty, it has likewise lost 
its spiritual authority over more than half of the Christian 
world. It has also lost authority over the modern thinking 
world and is suffering a serious decay of faith on the. part of 
its own followers. 

**The ideal of the one church," according to Dr. Newman 
Smyth, "wanders among us like a disembodied spirit, from 
church to church, until we really cease to believe in it. The 
ideal is put afar from us as a millennial dream ; it fades from 
our religious thought as a momentary glory passes from the 
evening sky. The ideal of the one organic church goes out 
from the firmament of our faith." 

All the signs written large against the failures of the Prot- 
estant and the Catholic ages herald the coming of a new 
religious order. There is a growing Christian consciousness in 
which is enthroned the idea of the Christian society, free from 
externalities and unessential forms, a return to the simplicity 
of the primitive Christian Church, and which likewise shall 
be an advance towards the complete church which is Christ's 
body, the fullness of Him who filleth all in all. 

It may well be asked, is there not something more than the 
voice of the visionary in this conclusion of Father Tyrrell? 
"Taught by history — God's great logic mill which has worked 
out both these sixteenth-century solutions, the solution of un- 
fettered authority and the solution of unfettered liberty to 
their impossible results — the modernists will see the necessity 

99^ 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

of going back to the point of divergence. In the Hght of three 
centuries of necessary but costly experience, may the problem 
of liberty and authority not now admit of some happier solu- 
tion so that on the ruins of two opposing systems there may 
be built up something more durable than either." 

Catholicity, it should be explained in this connection, refers 
to a temper of mind, a quality of spirit characteristic of those 
united to Christ as members of the church invisible. Cathol- 
icism is a manifestation of this Christian spirit in some evident 
form, in other words, clothed upon with some body. In the 
closing chapter of Dr. Smyth's book on "Passing Protestantism 
and Coming Catholicism" we find the author turning seer and 
prophet. From the watch towers of the religious world he 
discerns the passing of the old religious orders and the coming 
of the new Catholicism whose advent he proclaims in these 
eloquent words: 

"The law came by Moses, but the age in which the law 
was given rendered necessary the age of the prophets. Not to 
destroy but to fulfill — the ever larger fulfillment of the law and 
the prophets is the historic work, — still in process of accom- 
plishment — of the Son of Man who said — *my Father worketh 
hitherto and I work' ; it is the increasing work of Him who 
sitteth on the throne, who said: 'Behold I make all things new.' 
In the main the distinctive work of Protestants as Protestants 
has been done and in the fulfillment of its providential mission 
lies the sign of the passing of the Protestant age. 

"The spirit of Catholicity, rising from the death of sec- 
tarianism, will not be made perfect until it shall appear in some 
embodiment, finer indeed and m.ore free, so evidently fash- 
ioned of the spiritual elements and so luminous with love and 
yet so visible whenever disciples are met together that in its 
presence the glory of Christ may be made manifest even as he 
prayed. 

"Living among men in the love of the Son of Man as the 
servant of all ; obedient in every thought to the truth that makes 
free, possessing as its own the fulness of its creeds and even 
following on to know the Lord, praying always that, with all 

100 



A NEW RELIGIOUS ORDER 

the saints it may be strong to know the love of Christ which 
passeth knowledge — such more visibly shall be the one Cath- 
olic Church — seeing which the world might beHeve." 

The manifestation anew of the mind that was in Jesus will 
be Christ's second coming, and, as foretold in Scripture, even 
at an hour when we may not be looking, "the Son of Man 
Cometh." The appearance in history of the Judea-Christian 
church came as a surprise to Peter in his dream on the house- 
top. And as Dr. Smyth has well said, the realization of that 
dream in the primitive Christian church is the marvel of the 
ages in the eyes of modern historians. Nevertheless, as we 
now look back upon the first centuries of the Christian era, we 
see how naturally it came to pass as the fulfillment of the old 
prophecies of history and as the immediate manifestation of 
the mind that was in Jesus ! 

"Concerning the form in which Christian unity may be 
made visible, we know not with what body it shall come, and 
it may not come in the way we may imagine. From the bap- 
tism of the Spirit may proceed — perhaps sooner than men 
may think or dream — the age of the one Holy Catholic 
Church."^ 

II. 

We hear on every side the cry, the churches are decaying. 
Nevertheless true religion is not dying out in the hearts of 
men. Millions have awaited the call of the prophet whose 
genius shall create new forms or restore neglected and long- 
lost ones, which will embody the spirit and truth of Christ, in 
which and through which the divine energies may be man- 
ifested in such power as will, in the language of Edward 
Markham, "make right the immemorial infamies, perfidious 
wrongs, immedicable woes" of betrayed humanity, suffering 
from an oppression which degrades man to the level of the 
beast, and makes him the savage of a civilization that not only 

^Passing Protestantism and Coming Catholicism, pages 
197-209. 

101 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

disgraces the nation under which oppression flourishes, but 
the organized or institutional Christianity whose impotence it 
proclaims. 

"We are entering," said the editor of the Independent a 
few years ago, "on a new era which shall be greater than the 
past. What revelation from God is to be spoken? Who shall 
speak it? Not that man, be sure, who is the most self-con- 
fident; not that man who is the most learned; but that man 
who stands most open to the clear light of heaven, nearest to 
the divine Principle — and who in all sincerity is willing to be 
illumined, not by the light of old theories and outlived faiths, 
but by that of the Infinite Father to-day." 

Recently the Brampton lecturer in the pulpit of St. Mary's 
at Oxford made this emphatic declaration: "I see the rise of 
a new religious order, the greatest that the world has known, 
drawn from all nations and classes, and, what seems stranger 
yet, from all churches." To this significant statement the 
Rev. Newman Smyth refers in a passage which might well 
have been phrased in a positive rather than a tentative form : 

"There is no surer mark of a prophetic truth than this, it 
seems to rise of itself above the horizon and is found shining 
in all men's eyes. Is the thought of some new, more universal 
order of Christianity coming thus to men's minds spontane- 
ously, generally? Is it working everywhere hardly recognized, 
or least to be expected, beneath existing forms and customs? 
Is it in the air — an indefinable influence yet a new breath of 
the Spirit, in which thought expands and faith receives fresh 
vitalities ?" 

A distinguished figure among modernists in the Roman 
Catholic Church — Don Romola Murri, who commands a de- 
voted following in Italy, says: "We desire a Christianity 
more pure, more intense, more practical, more Christian, more 
conformed to its original, more conformed to the Gospel." 
Does he not voice the aspirations not only of thousands who 
are in revolt against ofiicial Romanism, but of thousands who 

IQ2 



A NEW RELIGIOUS ORDER 

are in revolt against the outlived creeds and dogmas and 
ecclesiasticism of Protestant denominations? 

The time has fully ripened for the appearance of a new 
religious order, for the manifestation of the spirit of Christian 
unity in some worthier embodiment than that to be found in 
either historic Judaism, declining Romanism, or passing Prot- 
estantism. Religion is withdrawing from the Protestant 
churches. There are increasing numbers of people who belong 
to no church, confess no creed and rarely attend church ser- 
vice, but who nevertheless are not irreligious or without faith. 
Protestant creeds and theological formulas no longer appeal to 
them as worthy of acceptance. Roman absolutism repels rather 
than attracts them. 

III. 

In view of what is to follow we may profitably study the 
history of the inception of the early Christian church as given 
in the Book of Acts: 

"And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, 
and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat 
with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and hav- 
ing favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the 
church daily such as should be saved." 

The work of the apostles is described in these words: 

"By the hands of the apostles were many signs and won- 
ders wrought among the people There came also a 

multitude out of the cities round about Jerusalem, bringing 
sick folks, and them which were vexed with unclean spirits: 
and they were healed every one." (Acts v, 12-16.) 

The missionary work of the early Christian church is sim- 
ply told in these expressive words: "And they went forth 
and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and 
confirming the word with signs following." 

The gospel of Jesus was a healing gospel and such it con- 
tinued to be during the first few centuries of the Christian era. 
The religion which Jesus' followers were to carry to the ends 

103 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

of the earth stood in relation to the ancient faiths as some- 
thing absolutely new and distinctive in character. It was to be 
a strange and extraordinary thing, a religious society without 
the symbols, sacrifices, ceremonies, or officials hitherto held to 
be the religious all in all. The society which Jesus founded 
was one that should realize His own ideal. It was to be a 
kingdom of heaven, spiritual, eternal, which came without ob- 
servation but was to manifest itself in the peace and joy and 
love of its citizens. 

We have already seen that there is not the least scintilla of 
evidence to show that Jesus ever made use of any terms that 
implied a priesthood for His people or the continuance of any 
priesthood within His church, or that He ever created any 
order of priesthood to which any man could belong. On the 
contrary. His relation to the priesthood of His land and time 
was one of radical antagonism. 

The early Christian church had its apostles, its prophets, its 
overseers, its teachers, its deacons and evangelists, but it had 
no priests and no man or body of men who bore the name or 
fulfilled the priestly duties as these are known in ancient re- 
ligions. 

In this Christianity of Christ and the .apostles, primitive 
Christianity, as we are accustomed to call it, there is no pro- 
vision to be found anywhere for an official priesthood. There 
is no order possessed of the exclusive right to officiate in 
things sacred, exercising this function by virtue of some in- 
alienable right. In the apostolic church the laymen might 
baptize or celebrate the Eucharist; the individual society or 
church could exercise discipline, could even institute or depose 
its officers. It had no sensuous sanctities. 

There is nothing to indicate the existence in the church of 
the New Testament of the monarchial idea or any anticipation 
or prophecy of it. The church had a fraternal but no corporate 
relation. Supremacy belonged to no man, Christ was the sole 

104 



A NEW RELIGIOUS ORDER 

autliorit}' to whom "all power is given in heaven and in earth." 
The idea of an official, infallible head is foreign to the mind 
of Christ. The Hol}^ Spirit is the guide to the knowledge of 
the Truth that shall make free. The kingdom is a realm where 
the will of God is law, and the law is love, and the citizens are 
the loving and the obedient. 

There were no bishops in the modern sense over any 
church or over the whole church. Worship did not depend on 
sacred persons, places or rites, but was to be a thing of spirit 
and truth. The best prayer is sacred and personal ; the only 
sacrifices Jesus asked man to ofifer are those of the spirit and 
the life. God does not need to be propitiated, but is propitious. 

IV. 

In the year 1866 a New England woman, Mary Baker 
Eddy, then 45 years of age, compared herself to a voice crying 
in the spiritual wilderness of the nineteenth century : "Prepare 
ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway 
for our God." Thirteen years thereafter, a little band of 
"earnest seekers after Truth" met together and went into delib- 
erations over forming a church to be called "The Church of 
Christ, Scientist." Mary Baker Eddy conducted the meeting 
and those present were students of Christian Science as she 
had taught and demonstrated it. 

The purpose of that meeting was to establish a church 
which should be without a creed, that should be founded on 
the Rock, Christ Jesus, whose words and works it should un- 
dertake to commemorate, and with the purpose to reinstate 
primitive Christianity with its lost element of healing ; in other 
words, to form a religious society or Christian brotherhood, 
based upon the Christ ideal, the apostoHc simplicity and the 
healing power of the early Christian Church. She had taught 
these students to look for the signs of Christ's coming; that 

105 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

Christ as the spiritual, or true, idea of God comes now as of 
old, preaching the gospel to the poor, healing the sick and cast- 
ing out evils. 

"Truth's immortal idea," she declared with confident faith, 
*'is sweeping down the centuries, gathering beneath its wing 

the sick and sinning The promises will be fulfilled. 

The time for the reappearing of the divine healing is through- 
out all time, and whosoever layeth his earthly all on the altar 
of divine Science drinketh of Christ's cup now, and is endued 
with the spirit and power of Christian healing."^ 

She declared that the way to immortality and life is not 
ecclestiastical, but Christian ; not human, but divine ; not physi- 
cal, but metaphysical ; not material, but scientifically spiritual ; 
that Christ planted Christianity on the foundation of Spirit; 
that he taught as he was inspired by the Father, and would 
recognize no life, intelligence nor substance outside of God. 
She made clear to her followers that the divine truth must be 
made known by its effects on the body, as well as upon the 
mind before the science of being could be demonstrated; that 
demonstration and spiritual understanding are God's immortal 
keynote, proved to be such by our Master and evidenced by 
the sick who are cured and the sinful who are saved. She 
insisted that the proofs which Jesus gave of Truth, Life and 
Love, by casting out error and healing the sick completed his 
earthly mission, which mission His followers were to per- 
petuate. 

The work which this little band of Scientists undertook, 
viz. : "To commemorate Christ's words and works, to restore 
primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing," is pre- 
eminently the task of this age. 

Out of that now historic little meeting, held in the city of 
Lynn, Mass., in the summer of 1879, for the purpose of organ- 
izing a church and reinstating primitive Christianity and its 

^Science and Health, page 55. 

106 



A NEW RELIGIOUS ORDER 

lost element of healing, has grown the Christian Science 
church as we know it to-day. 

Is it exemplifying the simplicity and unity of the early 
Christian Church; is it realizing the mission to which it is 
committed? Does its teachings and institutional life furnish 
a basis of Christian brotherhood or fellowship in which all true 
followers of Christ throughout the world may unite in the 
worship and service of the one true God; and if so, is it des- 
tined to become the visible embodiment of the ideal Chris- 
tianity of Jesus Christ in which all discord as to doctrine and 
worship will die away in the unity of the Christian faith, and 
all discordant elements be fused into the one universal Church 
of Christ, at peace with itself and mighty for the pulhng down 
of the strongholds of evil and for the establishment of Christ's 
kingdom on earth? 



107 



In the grand anthem, which ive call history, after playing 
a low and subdued accompaniment, woman finds the time ar- 
rived when she may strike in with telling effect and take a 
Master's part in the music. — Emerson. 



The age grows impatient < f ex cathedra laws; it merges 

more and more from ecclesiastical sway into the broader life 

of developed personality. Something diviner than church law 

of doubtful authority must be our reliance for a higher life. — 

Bishop Andrews. 



The truth seems to be breaking upon the English people, 
that they have yet to' see the realization of a society corre- 
sponding to the ideal of Christ and that to accomplish this 
ideal, they must take some higher and nobler way than the 
ancient method of founding and maintaining churches. — 
Dr. Fairbairn. 



109 



III. 

THE FOUNDER OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

THE founding of a great religious denomination by a 
woman is a fact historically without precedent. Reading 
the record of the Christian Science movement, one sees a 
heroic figure emerging from the words and deeds of the last 
half of the nineteenth century, a woman of genius, who by 
virtue of her special qualifications, has become the channel for 
the communication of a message of the deepest import to 
humanity, and who has put into the Christian Science church 
a creative force and energy that is making it one of the strong- 
est influences in the life of the age. 

A woman of power and of destiny, of great physical beauty, 
"illumined from within" ; her figure is touched with romance ; 
it fascinates the imagination. Her presence is inspiring, yet 
persuasive in its sweetness, because of the charm of many en- 
gaging qualities of mind and heart. Nevertheless, she pos- 
sesses great strength of character and indomitable courage and 
tenacity of trust in God so that she has been enabled to sweep 
every obstacle from her path. As the discoverer of Christian 
Science; as the author of the Christian Science text-book, 
Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures; as a great 
reformer and leader whom the world now recognizes as the 
foremost of the age, Mary Baker Eddy possesses the attractive- 
ness and interest of a great historical character. 

The originator of a great metaphysical healing movement 
which derives its sanction from the Bible and demonstrates the 
holy influence of the Truth in healing sickness and sin, and 
which points the way to the restoration to Christianity of the 
long-lost element of spiritual healing; the acknowledged head 
of one of the greatest religious movements known, whose 

110 



THE FOUNDER OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 

spiritual forces she has directed; a wise and courageous coun- 
sellor, who has guided with efficient methods to noble ends, 
yet withal in a spirit of sweet simplicity and spiritual devout- 
ness, and with such faithfulness to her exalted mission as to 
enshrine her in the affections of numberless thousands of 
loyal followers ; a great American woman who has brought to 
mankind an evangel of good, of hope, of love, the founder of 
Christian Science is in many respects one of the most re- 
markable women ever born in this country. Some have even 
pronounced her the most marvelous woman of either modern 
or ancient history. 

Despite the ridicule, the denunciation and even the perse- 
cution which she has encountered, she lived to behold her 
teachings accepted by thousands of followers in America, Eng- 
land and continental Europe; in the far East, and in the Isles 
of the Sea. Her doctrines, adopted by many of those who 
have been at first opposed to her, are modifying to a remark- 
able extent the thought of the age along both philosophical and 
religious lines. 

Under her leadership and wise counsel a religion which 
must be classed among the principal faiths of the civilized 
world has been established and is now in a highly prosperous 
condition. She developed it until it has become a factor in 
the progress of nations. She organized it as no other religion 
has ever been organized; and she guided her followers as few 
heads of a church have ever done. In making these state- 
ments I am but reflecting the judgment of disinterested ob- 
servers. 

Mary Baker Eddy was a woman of progressive and ad- 
vanced ideas, a great spiritual thinker with the temperament of 
the seer. She was the herald of a new crusade for universal 
freedom, a woman whose heart was "a passion flower, bearing 
within it the crown of thorns and the cross of Christ." Without 
means or influential connections, as the world judges, she 

111 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

undertook the seemingly impossible and utterly hopeless task 
of restoring to this age primitive Christianity with its charac- 
teristic but lost element of healing, a task which from the very 
beginning called for more than human wisdom and endurance. 

She knew what it is to meet the world's dread scorn; to 
be greatly misunderstood, greatly misrepresented and cruelly 
maligned, yet bore it all with a self-sacrificing disposition and 
freedom from unfriendly criticism or uncharitableness to- 
wards her enemies almost without parallel in history. With 
an experience of deep sorrow, of sharp disappointment, of 
penury and the ingratitude of those whom she has benefited, 
which filled life's cup of suffering to the brim, she nevertheless 
labored with sublime courage for the triumph of good over 
evil in every phase of human experience, and has lived to see 
a noble purpose grandly realized. In her life there was no 
relaxation of care, even in the beauty and serenity of her 
advanced age. While accomplishing a greater work in the 
religious field than any one man since the days of Paul, she 
constantly sought to direct attention away from herself and 
her work to God, whose will she selflessly has striven to do. 
It is because of this most striking characteristic that she was 
enabled to draw a million followers into loving accord with her 
interpretation of the Bible, followers who entertain towards 
her sentiments of love and gratitude because of a condition of 
happiness, contentment, surety, peace, hitherto unknown in 
their lives. 

So far as the attacks made upon Mrs. Eddy are concerned, 
like Greeley's abuse of Lincoln, they represent a point of view 
which in these latter da3^s we realize was out of focus. While 
the critics have given this or that as a conclusive reason why 
Mrs. Eddy could not possibly have written the Christian 
Science Text-book, or organized and directed the great re- 
ligious movement which it has fostered, not one has yet an- 
swered the question, "who taught her how to do it?" 

112 



THE FOUNDER OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 

From whatever angle we may view this pioneer of a new 
religious movement, this rare woman whose daring and doing 
has lifted her into prominence as the central figure in the 
religious world of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, 
we perceive at once those qualities which would have stamped 
her as a remarkable woman in any age. Clear insight, fine 
tact, invincible courage, business acumen, administrative and 
executive ability, a remarkable faculty for organization, a phe- 
nomenal talent not only for "seeing things in the large and 
seeing them in the whole," but for holding the balance be- 
tween the ideal and the practical; pre-eminent in the noble 
gifts of patience, persistence and courage, yet wasting no 
energy in her almost ceaseless activities; winning and holding 
her friends with a wonderful simplicity which has yielded 
nothing of her heroic purpose ; achieving success without those 
influences, means and resources, deemed most essential to suc- 
cess in this age, and doing so in the face of the world's hostility 
and opposition — the story of this woman's life and the found- 
ing and growth of the Christian Science church become a 
grand epic which the perspective of history, as the years roll 
by, will Hft into sharp relief as the masterpiece of the nine- 
teenth century. 

The story of Mary Baker Eddy's career and achievements 
is not within the scope of this book; it belongs to the future 
historian. There are, however, some salient features, the 
recital of which will maintain the continuity of our presenta- 
tion of facts relating to the' inception and growth of the 
Christian Science movement. 



Since the foregoing was penned Mrs. Eddy has unexpect- 
edly passed away from the earthly scene of her untiring activ- 
ities in the service of God and humanity. This is not an ap- 
propriate time to set an estimate upon her right to enduring 



113 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

fame. It can be more accurately judged by posterity in the 
light of a broader perspective than is ours at the present time. 
But whatever one's opinion may be in matters of religion it 
will be generally admitted that Airs. Eddy's influence has been 
constantly directed towards the good of others and that this 
betterment has been especially noticeable in the lives of those 
who have come within the range of her influence or of the 
movement which she has inspired and directed. 

New England has produced many strong characters from 
Anne Bradstreet down, who have dared to oppose a militant 
heterodoxy against a narrow and inadequate orthodoxy. Mrs. 
Eddy may justly be regarded not only as one of the strongest 
and most unique characters in New England history, but as 
one of the historic women of American history, the first, 
in fact, in the history of the human race to obtain world-wide 
reputation as a religious leader. She has had the courage to 
expound new and revolutionary doctrines not only in the realm 
of religion but of Science as well, for which the world will yet 
be grateful to her. She has been the first among the women to 
create a church ; to organize a polity and to build up a powerful 
and opulent ecclestiastical organization, unparalleled in its 
unity and compactness, and to establish and promote a world- 
wide propaganda. She has glorified the teachings of Jesus 
Christ and made them a living power to-day as 1900 years ago. 
She has presented and made practical religious ideas centuries 
old ; through her teachings and labor the healing and saving 
power of the Christ truth has been applied to the conditions of 
life among the people of to-day. She has made that Truth 
a practicable and demonstrable one, not only to this country 
but in the continents and islands of the old world. 

In international reputation and in the wide dispersion of 
her followers, Mrs. Eddy has no equal among American 
women. Her record as an ecclesiastical organizer, as a great 
constructive religious personality no woman of any time or 

114 



THE FOUNDER OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 

people has ever duplicated. She has made the record of the 
Christian Science Church a phenomenal one in the history 
of modern religious movement. 

Whatever the sentiments which we may entertain towards 
Mrs. Eddy it is folly to underrate the significance of her Hfe, — 
it constitutes the most amazing phenomenon in American life. 
We are compelled to admit the fact that in the inception and 
the marvelous extension of the Christian Science Movement, 
she has successfully maintained her position as its accepted 
leader and has exercised throughout a tremendous power and 
influence in fostering its growth and directing its activities. 

Study her career from whatever angle you please, one 
cannot fail to recognize her unique personality, her unusual 
ability and the remarkable calmness and fortitude with which 
she has met and mastered the antagonism and emphatic dis- 
agreements aroused by her doctrines. She has lived to see 
her devoted adherents numbered by thousands, many of them 
of high intelligence and substance, and to see the standards 
of Christian Science carried to almost every part of the habit- 
able globe. She has lived to see the faith of her followers in 
the divine verity taught by her, viz. : that "God, not man, is the 
center and circumference of being, the Principle and Life of 
all," backed by the erection of costly and impressive edifices 
of worship, both here and elsewhere. 

Through her spiritual insight and interpretation of the 
Scriptures, the Bible is becoming a mighty life-giving power 
to multitudes who formerly knew only the letter and not its 
true spiritual import and whose lives have demonstrated the 
healing power of Divine Truth as unfolded by her in Science 
and Health, with Key to the Scriptures. 

After a long and laborious life, her closing years were spent 
in peace with the world. She has passed quietly on leaving 
behind her an institution which is not only due to her con- 
summate constructive skill, but has been so firmly established 

lis 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

on such a sound and enduring basis as to make it one of the 
strongest religious bodies in the world. 

We cannot but concede to Mrs. Eddy the possession of a 
keen understanding of humanity, a far vision and an extraor- 
dinary perception of the possibilities of an idea which has filled 
the minds of thousands. In this idea she has maintained an 
invincible, Hving faith. The Christian Science organization is 
emphatically her work. She has succeeded in making Jesus 
Christ's teachings the central thought and the essence of a 
tremendously powerful religious structure. Remarkable for 
her spiritual intuitions in matters religious, she is not less 
remarkable for her knowledge of the world and her keen judg- 
ment of men. She has been able to gather about her many 
able organizers and administrators, but the work and attain- 
ments of none of these detract from her fame and station as 
the founder and leader of the Christian Science Movement. 
Hers was the genius and hers was the originating energy which 
made the work of others possible and profitable for the Church. 

The great test of every great builder or founder, whether 
in statecraft, business, politics or religion, is the ability to 
build up a strong organization and yet maintain the position of 
founder or builder without making the organization or institu- 
tion dependent on personality. In no other respect is the 
sagacity and masterly executive and administrative capacity of 
Mrs. Eddy more remarkably displayed than in the wisdom with 
which she has built up and directed the activities of the rap- 
idly extending Christian Science Movement. She has so effec- 
tively provided for its order and the administration of its 
affairs under a complete system of government that her demise* 
leaves no question as to the effectual regulation and perpet- 
uation of the movement. She has throughout been guided by 
a fixed purpose to direct the thought of her following from 
human personality to divine principle. In one of her articles 
in the Christian Science Journal she says: "There never was 

116 



THE FOUNDER OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 

a religion or philosophy lost to the centuries except by sinking 
its divine principle in personality." Profiting by this lesson 
she has not only sought seclusion for herself, but, with rare 
spiritual discernment, has safeguarded the church by the abo- 
lition of personal preaching and those regulations which fixed 
the bounds to the scope of personal backing and the functions 
of teachers. 

Christian Science is here to remain, in all likelihood, for a 
long, long time. The passing of its founder leaves the church 
in able hands with a following deeply loyal to Mrs. Eddy's 
teachings as contained in Science and Health, the text-book of 
the church. Her idea throughout has been to minimize the 
power of personality and leadership and to impress upon 
every member a deep sense of personal responsibility. While 
we may speculate as to whether or no the church, as some have 
predicted, will in the next decade be the most powerful in the 
world, next to the Roman Catholic church, there is scarcely 
any chance for argument as to the extraordinary, the amazing 
personality of the frail little woman — an invalid until middle 
age — out of whose brain and indomitable will that church was 
bom. It would be difficult to find her counterpart in all the 
annals of ancient and modern history. "Many men and many 
women," as the Rev. Thos. B. Gregory has justly remarked, 
"have equalled or exceeded her in intellectual power and per- 
sonal attractions, but for might of personality and mental in- 
fluence, where among the sons and daughters of men shall we 
find one who accomplished so great a life-work?" 

It must not be forgotten that both Mrs. Eddy and the 
Christian Science cause have had to pass through the blazing 
fires of our modern publicity. This woman's triumphs were 
achieved in a densely materialistic age, at a time when the 
critic's eye is peering into every nook and comer of things to 
detect and expose every species of fraud and imposition. The 
searchlight of a hostile and powerful press has been turned 

117 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

upon every nook and cranny of Mrs. Eddy's life from infancy 
to old age; nay, more, she has had to meet and endure the 
world's derision, and a volume of abuse and misrepresenta- 
tion of the most virulent sort, sufficient to have swept out of 
existence any movement less solidly grounded in Truth. To 
have done what Mary Baker Eddy unquestionably has done 
under these circumstances, in the midst of this the brightest 
age that the world has ever known, is enough, as a recent 
writer has observed, "to give her an elevated niche in the 
temple of Fame, a place, as it were, all by herself, without 
peer or rival." 

The concluding paragraph of an article from Mrs. Eddy's 
pen, on page 207 of Miscellaneous Writings, illustrates her 
attitude toward the world and her deep desire that her fol- 
lowers should be imbued with the same spirit as her own. 
It bears the impress of her deep, unselfish love for humanity 
and throws a clear, revealing light upon the innermost spirit 
and purpose of her life: 

"As you journey, and betimes sigh for rest, 'beside still 
waters,' ponder this lesson of love. Learn its purpose ; and in 
hope and faith, where heart meets heart reciprocally blest, 
drink with me the living waters of the spirit of my life-purpose 
to impress humanity with the genuine recognition of practical, 
operative Christian Science." 

Could she speak to-day, in the flesh, it seems as if she might 
fittingly say, as did, Paul: 

"I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course. I 
have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a 
crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the Righteous Judge, 
shall give me at that day ; and not to me only, but unto all them 
also that love His appearing." 

L — Some Personal Characteristics. 
Mrs. Eddy early displayed that power of compelling 
obedience which has marked her whole life. She possessed a 
deeply spiritual nature combined with poetic gifts and a sweet- 

118 



THE FOUNDER OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 

ness and amiability which appealed to all her associates and 
followers. Temperamentally and religiously she was absorbed 
and in later years was criticized for the atmosphere of seclusion 
which she wrapped about herself and which it was difficult to 
penetrate. Those around her did not intrude upon her moods 
nor force their wishes upon her attention. 

There are those who declared her to be a woman of power 
and of mystery, a seer and prophetess, who lived a wonderful 
life and did a wonderful work. By others she was held to be 
a mystic with views of a finer world than lies open to common 
sight; that she possessed a gifted and poetic nature; that she 
had a psychic or idealistic temperament, combined with prac- 
tical business sense and marvelous power of organization. 
Those who knew her best tell us that she had remarkable per- 
sonal charm, combined with gentleness, patience, humility and 
spiritual exaltation ; that she came to this age bringing a new 
evangel to humanity; that her indomitable courage combined 
with other character gifts would have made her a marked 
woman in any circle. Still others say that she possessed a 
spiritual responsiveness which enabled her to rediscover the 
saving truth of the Master's teaching after it had been long 
obscured in human consciousness ; that she had the capacity 
to understand and state the principle of this teaching; to 
awaken confidence through practical demonstration, and to 
send the word on its mission of healing. 

During the sixties Mrs. Eddy, impelled by an experience of 
the healing Christ in an hour of supreme need, withdrew from 
society for a period of three years to ponder her mission; to 
search the Scriptures ; to find the Science of Mind that should 
grasp the things of God, shaw them to the creature and reveal 
the great curative principle — Deity. In presenting her message 
to the world she declared that the Bible had been her only 
text-book ; that the Scriptures had presented a new meaning, a 
new tongue ; that their spiritual signification appeared and that 

119 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

for the first time she was able to apprehend Jesus' teaching and 
demonstrations in their spiritual meaning, and thus to demon- 
strate the principle and the rule of spiritual science and meta- 
physical healing — Christian Science. 

She declared that her search for a positive rule was calm 
and buoyant, not selfish nor depressing. She knew that all 
action and power belong to God and that cures had been pro- 
duced in primitive Christianity healing by holy, uplifting faith, 
and she won her way to absolute conclusions through divine 
revelation, reason and demonstration. She beheld the reason 
why the Master did not question those He healed as to symp- 
toms of disease, and why He neither demanded obedience to 
hygienic laws nor prescribed drugs to support the divine power 
which heals. Her ability to perceive this she attributes to 
God, who had been fitting her during many years for the re- 
ception of the message and the mission. 

She insisted that Jesus demonstrated the power of healing 
human minds and bodies, but that His power was lost to sight 
and must again be spiritually discerned, taught and adminis- 
tered according to his command with ''signs following"; that 
its science must be apprehended by as many as believe in and 
spiritually understand Christ. Jesus' healing, she declares, was 
spiritual in its nature, method and design. The Master 
wrought the cure of disease through the divine Mind which 
gives all true volition, impulse and action, and establishes har- 
mony and health. 

Mrs. Eddy's mission to sufifering humanity is expressed in 
the following words quoted from Science and Health : 

**I saw before me the sick, wearing out years of servitude 
to an unreal master in the belief that the body governed them 
rather than Mind." 

"The lame, the deaf, the dumb, the blind, the sick, the sen- 
sual, the sinner, I wished to save from the slavery of their own 
beliefs and from the educational beliefs of the Pharaohs, who 
to-day as of yore hold the children of Israel in bondage. I 

120 



THE FOUNDER OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 

saw before me the awful conflict, the Red Sea and the wilder- 
ness ; but I pressed on through faith in God, trusting Truth the 
strong deliverer to guide me into the land of Christian Science, 
where fetters fall and the rights of man are fully known and 
acknowledged." 

The mission Christian Science has to perform she expresses 
in the following words: *'Now, as in the time of its earlier 
demonstration, its mission is not primarily one of physical 
healing. Now, as then, signs and wonders are wrought in the 
metaphysical healing of physical disease; but these signs are 
only to demonstrate its divine origin, — to attest the reality of 
the higher mission of the Christ-power to take away the sins 
of the world." 

Mrs. Eddy's confidence in the healing power of the Christ- 
truth as promulgated in Science and Health, was so unbounded 
as to impel the statement that when scientific religion and divine 
healing are adopted Christian Science will eliminate sin, sick- 
ness and death ; that if given a place in our institutions of learn- 
ing now occupied by scholastic theology and physiology, it will 
eradicate sin and sickness in less time than the old systems 
devised for subduing them, have required for self-establishment 
and propagation. As to her conviction concerning the verity of 
the Science of Christianity as stated in Science and Health, she 
says that no human pen nor tongue taught it to her, and that 
neither tongue nor pen can overthrow it ; that, though her book- 
may be distorted by shallow criticism and its ideas be tem- 
porarily abused and misrepresented, the Science and Truth 
therein will remain forever to be discerned and demonstrated. 
Her confidence in the efiicacy of what she teaches is as unlim- 
ited as was that of the Master who declared "Heaven and earth 
shall pass away, but My words shall not." 

n. — The Christian Science Text Book. 
At Lynn, Massachusetts, one winter evening in February, 
1866, Mary Baker Eddy, then forty-four years of age, 

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ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

was returning with her husband from a meeting of Good 
Templars, when she slipped upon the icy curbstone and severely 
injured her head and her spine. She was carried unconscious 
to the house of a neighbor, where the usual remedies were ad- 
ministered in an endeavor to restore her to consciousness. The 
accident was so severe that it induced spasms and internal suf- 
fering, which neither medicine nor surgery seemed able to 
reach. The next morning, however, she insisted upon being 
taken to her home in Swampscott, whether the physicians con- 
sented or not. Her removal was accomplished while she was in 
a partly unconscious state, under the influence of opiates. 

Finding no hope of health on earth, she turned to God. 
On the third day she requested her family to give her the 
Bible and to leave the room. The book opened at the incident 
in the New Testament where the healing of the palsied man is 
recorded. She was able to appropriate the truth which set the 
palsied man free. Becoming conscious of a divine illumination 
and ministration, she thereupon arose, dressed herself, and to 
the utter consternation of all commenced her usual vocation. 
Ker pastor, who had called to bid her farewell before service, 
returned to find her busy about the house. This immiediate 
recovery gave her a positive conviction that there is a scientific 
method of obtaining practical results by unswerving dependence 
upon God. It was the falling apple which led to her discovery 
of the science of divine metaphysical healing, which she after- 
wards named Christian Science. 

This experience had been preceded by years of invalidism. 
In her early life she had adopted the Graham system to cure 
a chronic state of dyspepsia and for years ate bread and vege- 
tables and drank nothing but water. Her dyspepsia increas- 
ing, she decided that her diet should be more rigid, and there- 
after she partook of but one meal in twenty- four hours, this 
meal consisting of only a thin slice of bread without water. 
Her physicians had also recommended that she should not wet 

122 



THE FOUNDER OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 

her parched throat until three hours after eating. She passed 
many years in hunger and weakness, almost in starvation ; and 
then made up her mind to die, having exhausted the skill of 
the doctor, who informed her that death was her alternative. 

The new-born understanding, derived from her remarkable 
recovery, to which I have alluded, led her to conclude that God 
did not make dyspepsia, but that fear, hygiene, physiology and 
physicians had made her a dyspeptic contrary to His commands. 
From that time forward she took less thought about what she 
ate and drank, consulted the stomach less and God more about 
the economy of living, and so recovered strength and flesh 
rapidly. She learned that food affects the body only as human 
thinking prescribes ; also that thinking sickness makes a sickly 
body; whereas thinking in God-planned channels reverses the 
effect of wrong thinking and establishes health. 

Since the incident mentioned, forty-four years have elapsed, 
Mrs. Eddy reached her 90th year of age in unimpaired health, 
possessed of such mental and physical vigor and strength as to 
be able to do a work which challenges the wonder and admira- 
tion of mankind. 

11. 

In a plain two-story house in Lynn, not far distant from 
the sea, there is a little, lonely, very plainly furnished room 
under the eaves, and lighted by a trap casement window. It is 
uncomfortably hot in summer and very cold in winter. The 
stars look into it and one can hear the throb of the ocean. A 
short stroll from that home brings one to an unfrequented part 
of Lynn beach. Jutting into the sea is a mass of granite known 
as Red Rock. Seated here, one may feel the mighty swell of 
Old Ocean, and may gaze far out upon the broad expanse, to 
watch the flight of gulls or the course of passing vessels. 

As the evening comes on, a gentle haze envelopes the sea, 

123 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

hints of rose color tint the waves, the twilight deepens and the 
stars come forth in the lustrous heavens. One may feel the 
quiet of the hour and the stillness, "soft, silent as the storm's 
sudden hush," scarcely disturbed by the stir and pulsation of the 
city, which breaks upon the ear in subdued murmur. Upon 
this broad sweep of marine panorama, overarched by the 
luminous sky, the golden rays of the setting sun slowly pale 
into gray; the ocean wrapped in contemplation, seems vibrat- 
ing in mysterious unison with nature in worship of the de- 
clining sun. Lingering, one may almost hear the music of the 
spheres and feel a deep sense of peace and the very presence 
of the Infinite. 

"A magical stillness ; on earth quiescence profound. 
On the waters a vast content, 

as of hunger appeased and stayed ; 
In the heavens a silence that seems 

not mere privation of sound 
But a thing with form and body, 

a thing to be touched and weighed." 

— William Watson. 

A little plainly dressed woman came often to these rocks 
in the summer of 1875. Gazing upon the outstretched sea, 
restless and storm-tossed at times, with uplifted thought and 
quickened spiritual perception, she realized in the scene a 
meaning which she has voiced in poetic measures : 

"And o'er earth's troubled, angry sea, 

I see Christ walk. 
And come to me, and tenderly, 

Divinely talk. 

"Thus Truth engrounds me on the Rock 

Upon Life's shore, 
'Gainst which the winds and waves can shock, 

Oh, nevermore !" 

— Miscellaneous Writings, page 397. 

124 



THE FOUNDER OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 

In such supreme moments, in transcendent mood, there 
came to her visions of a fairer world than this material earth, 
a realm of finer forces and skies with wider horizon. Here, 
in the gathering twilight there came the sound of "gentle 
stillness." Here, like the prophets of olden time, she com- 
muned with God ; to her there came the inrush of divine illum- 
ination and inspiration. 

On the jutting rocks of Lynn beach, and in her little attic 
room on Broad street, in hours of spiritual exaltation, this 
woman toiled with patience and unflinching determination, 
sustained and guided by the divine wisdom and strength, that 
'^through divine revelation, reason and demonstration" she 
might give to the world the doctrines contained in her book, 
Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures. In that little 
attic room, during the summer of 1875, she completed the 
manuscript and, later in that same year, published the first 
edition of one thousand copies. To its preparation she gave 
nine years of her life, years filled with unremitting toil and 
sacrifice, and almost hopeless struggle. 

Concerning her choice of a name for the book, Mrs. Eddy 
gives us a glimpse of her experience in the following illuminat- 
ing passage condensed from her Miscellaneous Writings: 

"Six weeks I waited on God to suggest a name for the 
book I had been writing. The title Science and Health came 
to me when the steadfast stars watched over the night and 
when slumber had fled. I arose and recorded the hallowed 
suggestion. The following day I showed it to some of my 
literary friends, who advised me to drop both book and title. 
To this, however, I gave no heed, feeling sure that God had 
led me to write that book, and whispered that name to my 
waiting hope and prayer. It was to me the still, small voice 
that carne to Elijah after the earthquake and the fire." 

During these nine years she had also labored in almost 
heart-breaking isolation and opposition to give to the world 

125 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

the metaphysical system of heaHng, contained in her book, 
and to demonstrate the Divine Principle in the healing of the 
sick. She insisted that a more practical Christianity, demon- 
strating justice and meeting human want in sickness and in 
health has been knocking at the door of the age ; she declared 
that she had demonstrated through Christian Science, by prac- 
tical tests, that Truth has lost none of its divine healing efficacy, 
even though centuries have passed since Jesus practised the 
rules on the hills of Judea and in the valleys of Galilee. 

Mrs. Eddy traveled no flowery paths of ease in her efforts 
to promulgate her doctrines or to demonstrate the principle 
of healing as taught in her book. The little home in Lynn, 
instead of becoming as she had hoped when she bought it, a 
refuge from boarding house infelicities, a haven of security, 
free from the distractions of worldly interests, became a very 
storm centre. There she encountered agitation and discord 
among her students, mahcious interference of those she re- 
garded as friends, the disaffection and withdrawal of a large 
group of her followers and the failure of the second edition of 
her book. Concerning this period she has written : "to pre- 
serve a long course of years, still and uniform, amid the uni- 
form darkness of storm and cloud and tempest, requires 
strength from above — deep draughts from the fount of Divine 
Love — the spiritual glow and grandeur of a consecrated life, 
where dwelleth peace, sacred and sincere, in trial and 
triumph." 

in. 

Inception of the Christian Science Church. 

Four years after the first edition of Science and Health, 
in the spring of 1879, a little band of twenty-six "earnest 
seekers after truth" met under the leadership of this heroic 
woman. They had all been members of evangelical churches, 
but had become students of the doctrines laid down in Science 

\26 



THE FOUNDER OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 

and Health, zvith Key to the Scriptures, and had become known 
as Christian Scientists. The purpose of this gathering was to 
organize a church that should "commemorate the words and 
works of our Master," and be without a creed. It undertook, 
against the most tremendous odds, the seemingly impossible 
task of establishing a religious organization that should rein- 
state primitive Christianity and restore the lost element of 
healing, which Jesus, the apostles and early followers had 
practised, despite the fact that this healing power had been 
absolutely lost to orthodox Christianity for seventeen centuries. 

The text-book of this church was to be the Word of God, 
as contained in the Holy Scriptures, with Science and Health 
as the key to its spiritual interpretation. The church was to be 
built "on the Rock Christ Jesus, even the understanding and 
demonstration of Divine Life, Truth and Love, healing and 
saving the world from sin and death, thus to reflect in some 
degree the church universal and triumphant." Its chief cor- 
ner-stone is Christian Science, as taught and demonstrated 
by the Master, even that Truth which casts out error, heals 
the sick and restores the lost Israel, for "the stone which the 
builders rejected, the same has become the head of the corner." 

The Christian Science Church began its career in a world 
full of materialism, in the face of an orthodox Christianity 
which for centuries had taught that Jesus healed disease on a 
miraculous basis and that such healing was for his time only; 
an orthodoxy which had deliberately ignored the command 
Jesus gave His followers to heal the sick by the same means 
which He employed, i. e., by the power of the Divine Mind. 
The church was opposed by a priesthood and ministerial class 
which rejects the present possibility of healing works and re- 
sorts to materia medica in case of illness; which maintains 
the reality of sin and suffering as God-ordained necessities in 
human experience; which clings tenaciously to the belief that 
sickness, sorrow and death are within the compass of divine 

127 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

economy, and for an infinitely good purpose ; and which resents 
any interference with its cherished behefs, creeds or dogmas 
as offensive both to itself and to God. 

Ridiculed, abused and misrepresented by both pulpit and 
press, this little band of followers, under the inspiration and 
leadership of a devoted woman, undertook the seemingly im- 
possible task of inaugurating a new religion whose text-book 
contains doctrines w^hich antagonize not only the philosophic 
but the scientific and the religious teachings of the ages. For 
this little body of believers to challenge the world to battle 
over the issues formulated in that book and over the works of 
healing the sick, destroying evil and revealing universal har- 
mony, was apparently to invite an ignominious defeat. This 
religious movement was to encounter not only the opposition 
of church and state and the hostility of the press, the clergy, 
the medical professor, and philosophic writers, but to suffer 
from internal troubles and defections and to be unmercifully 
criticized, abused and misrepresented. 

It was a movement utterly insignificant in its beginnings. 
In fact, the undertaking was termed the rankest religious 
lunacy of any age, and was characterized as the product of a 
disordered mind. Its followers were described as dupes and 
devotees of a metaphysical witch and siren, false to Jesus' 
teachings. It is small wonder that the world looked on in 
derision ; that it ridiculed these so-called vagaries of a woman's 
brain and predicted an early collapse of this new religious 
movement. 

That Mrs. Eddy was prepared, in a measure, for the bitter 
hostility, persecution and abuse w^hich she had to endure as the 
founder of Christian Science, is evident from the following 
prophetic extracts from her writings: 

"Christian Science and the senses are at war. It is a revo- 
lutionary struggle. We have already had two in this nation 
and they began and ended in a contest for the true idea — for 

128 



THE FOUNDER OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 

human liberty and rights. Now cometh a third struggle for 
the freedom of health, hohness and the attainment of heaven. 

"Because the Science of Mind seems to bring into dishonor 
the ordinary scientific schools, wrestling with material obser- 
vation alone, this science has met with opposition; but if any 
system honors God, it ought to receive aid, not opposition, 
from all thinking people. And Christian Science does honor 
God, as no other theory honors Him; and it does this in the 
way of His appointing, by doing many wonderful works 
throusfh the Divine name and nature." 



129 



IV. 

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH SYSTEM OF 
GOVERNMENT. 

ONE pauses to marvel at the courage and the genius of 
the woman who has been able to build up a religious 
organization, in which unity of doctrine is paralleled by re- 
markable unity of discipline and whose system of government 
is the most perfectly devised, closely guarded and smoothly 
working of any church in the world. How she did it is now a 
matter of history, which we may profitably study as to some of 
its features. 

First to be noted is the fact that the church is undenomi- 
national. It has no distinctive theological creed, but is welded 
into a harmonious whole by the adoption of certain religious 
postulates or tenets, as they are called; tenets which form the 
church platform and command the acceptance of every mem- 
ber. They were drawn up by Mrs. Eddy, and each branch 
church and society accepts them as the profession of its reli- 
gious faith and doctrine. There are no sects or schisms in 
the Christian Science Church. The tenets are given in Science 
and Health as follows: 

1. As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of 
the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal life. 

2. We acknowledge and adore one supreme and infinite 
God. We acknowledge His Son, one Christ; the Holy Ghost 
or divine Comforter; and man in God's image and likeness. 

3. We acknowledge God's forgiveness of sin in the de- 
struction of sin and the spiritual understanding that casts out 
evil as unreal. But the belief in sin is punished as long as the 
belief lasts. 

130 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT 

4. We acknowledge Jesus' atonement as the evidence of 
divine efficacious Love, unfolding man's unity with God 
through Christ Jesus the way-shower; and we acknowledge 
that man is saved through Christ, through Truth, Life and 
Love, as demonstrated by the Galilean Prophet in healing the 
sick and overcoming sin and death. 

5. We acknowledge that the crucifixion of Jesus and his 
resurrection served to uplift faith to understanding eternal 
Life, even the allness of Soul, Spirit and the nothingness of 
matter. 

6. And we solemnly promise to watch and pray for that 
Mind to be in us which was also in Christ Jesus ; to do unto 
others as we would have them do unto us ; and to be merciful, 
just and pure. 

The rules and regulations of the church comprised in the 
Church Manual in the form of by-laws cover the whole system 
of government. They were drawn by Mrs. Eddy from time 
to time as occasion required. In general they outline the 
details of qualification for membership, officers' duties, meet- 
ings, services, guardianship of funds, teaching of Christian 
Science, guidance of members, discipline and obedience, organi- 
zation of branch churches, publishing society, board of educa- 
tion, board of lectureship, association of teachers, missionaries, 
committees on publication, reading rooms, church building, etc. 

These by-laws are unique in the history of organized reli- 
gious bodies and in the further fact that they are the work of 
one person whose position is loyally accepted as the founder 
and head of the Christian Science Church. They originated, 
Mrs. Eddy states, "not in solemn conclave as in ancient San- 
hedrim. They were not arbitrary opinions nor dictatorial 
demands, such as one person might impose on another. They 
were impelled by a power not one's own, were written at dif- 
ferent dates, and as occasion required. They sprang from 
necessity, the logic of events, — from the immediate demand for 
them as a help that must be supplied to maintain the dignity 
and defence of our cause; hence their simple, scientific basis, 

131 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

and detail so requisite to demonstrate genuine Christian 
Science, and which will do for the race what absolute doctrines 
destined for future generations might not accomplish." 

Through these by-laws each church retains its individual 
independence in the conduct of its own affairs. Centralized 
ecclesiastical paternalism or domination is made practically 
impossible by the following rule of the Manual of the ]\Iother 
Church : 

"The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass., 
shall assume no general official control of other churches of 
this denomination; and it shall be officially controlled by no 
other church. 

"This is the denominational rule of Christian Science. Each 
Church of Christ, Scientist, shall have its own form of govern- 
ment." 

It may be said, however, that Mrs. Eddy is not a believer 
in material organization as expressive of the real Christian 
compact, which is love. "The church," she declares, "is that 
institution, which affords proof of its utility and is found ele- 
vating the race, rousing the dormant understanding from ma- 
terial beliefs to the apprehension of spiritual ideas and the 
demonstration of divine Science, thereby casting out devils, 
or error, and healing the sick."^ 

She also writes, "It is not indispensable to organize materi- 
ally Christ's church. It is not absolutely necessary to ordain 
pastors, and to dedicate churches ; but if this is done, let it be 
in concession to the period, not as a perpetual or indispensable 
ceremonial of the church. If our church is organized, it is 
to meet the demand, 'Suffer it to be so now.' The real Chris- 
tian compact is love for one another. This bond is wholly 
spiritual and inviolate. "- 

Of the church universal, JNIrs. Eddy writes : "The Church, 



^Science and Health, page 583. 
^Miscellaneous Writings, page 91 



132 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT 

more than any other institution, at present is the cement of 
society, and it should be the bulwark of civil and religious 
liberty. But the time cometh when the religious element, or 
Church of Christ, shall exist alone in the affections, and need 
no organization to express it. Till then, this form of godliness 
seems as requisite to manifest its spirit, as individuality to ex- 
press Sonl and Substance."^ 

Mrs. Eddy's views concerning the ministerial profession 
and preaching services are equally pronounced. They are ex- 
pressed in a most daring innovation, no less than the abolition 
of all priestly functions in the services of the church. The 
Christian Science Church has no ministers nor professional 
expounders of the word of God. In Article xiii. Section i, 
of the By-Laws, Mrs. Eddy ordains the Bible and Science and 
Health with Key to the Scriptures as Pastor over the Mother 
Church and the branches and declares that they will continue 
to preach for the church and the world. 

"It is true," she declares, "that I have made the Bible and 
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, the pastor for 
all the churches of the Christian Science denomination, but 
that does not make it impossible for this pastor of ours to 
preach. 

"To my sense, the sermon on the mount, read each Sunday 
without comment and obeyed throughout the week would be 
enough for Christian practice. The word of God is a powerful 
preacher, and it is not too spiritual to be practical, nor too trans- 
cendental to be heard and understood. 

"Whoever saith there is no" sermon without personal 
preaching, forgets that Christian Scientists do not, namely, that 
God is a person and that we should be willing to hear a sermon 
from this personal God." 

While stately edifices in many places mark the onward 
march of the Christian Science Church, they are regarded as 
but the type and symbol of the universal Christian church. 

^Miscellaneous Writings, page 145. 

133 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

They are erected to the glory of God, and represent the wilHng 
offerings and sacrifices of thousands of behevers who have 
been benefited by Christian Science. In general structure the 
Christian Science Church follows closely the system of govern- 
ment adc^pted by our American commonwealth, viz., a federa- 
tion of states individually related to the central government. 
Federal authority over the whole union and local sovereignty 
over the individual states are shov/n to be not only non-antag- 
onistic, but mutually strengthening and jointly operative. This 
principle and rule are exemplified in the formation and pro- 
gressive development of the Christian Science Church. 

The branch churches have their own rules and by-laws as 
local needs demand. They discipline their own members, main- 
tain their own churches and organizations, and support the 
general cause and the general church. As perhaps a majority 
of branch church members are also members of the Mother 
Church, they come under the rules of membership of this 
church as set forth in the Manual, in the same way that the 
resident of a particular state or territory of the American 
union is subject not only to state and territorial law, but to that 
of the National constitution as well. 

Attendance at the public services, educational lectures given 
by the authorized lecturers, the study of the Text Book, the 
publications of the Christian Science Publication Society and 
Mrs. Eddy's writings, are the methods relied upon for the 
spread of the movement. All these avenues of numerical 
accession are normal ones and at no point approach revivalistic 
or sensational methods, rather are they self-sustained and rep- 
resentative of a religion of works. 

Christian Science embraces a large body of practical Chris- 
tian workers, including teachers, lecturers, publication com- 
mittees, readers, and practitioners of Christian healing. It 
has no exclusive priesthood or separated ministry. The two 
church readers for each church, usually a man and a woman 

134 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT 

elected from the ranks of the local church membership for a 
period of three years, are not eligible to re-election. The same 
applies to the board of trustees, each member of which can 
serve only a three-year term. This guards effectually against 
the building of a personal control in the affairs of the church. 

In the Christian Science Sentinel of May 22, 1909, Mrs. 
Eddy further confirms the freedom of local government by a 
brief and significant proclamation, as follows: "In Christian 
Science each branch church shall be distinctly democratic in 
its government. It has been well said that of all the different 
forms of government which have existed, a democratic gov- 
ernment, on the plan of that which has been established in the 
United States, is believed to be the best adapted to secure the 
liberties of a people and to promote the general welfare." 

In Christian Science a higher law than any ever instituted 
by man is made the basis of the government of the church. 
It is stated in Science and Health, page 106, as follows : "God 
has endowed man with inalienable rights, among which are 
self-government, reason, and conscience. Man is properly 
self -governed only when he is guided rightly and governed by 
his Maker, divine Truth and Love." The Christian Science 
ministry is therefore a lay ministry; the church services are 
not realistic but congregational and uniform in procedure and 
character. At each Sunday service the following explanatory 
note is read by the First Reader before beginning the lesson- 
sermon : 

"The canonical writings, together with the word of our 
text-book, corroborating and explaining the Bible texts in their 
spiritual import and application to all ages, past, present and 
future — constitute a sermon undivorced from truth, uncon- 
taminated and unfettered by human hypothesis, and divinely 
authorized." 

The lesson-sermons are arranged by a Bible lesson commit- 
tee appointed by the authorities of the Mother Church. They 

135 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

are on selected subjects, consist of passages from the Bible, 
with correlative passages from the Christian Science Text- 
Book, and are read from the pulpit by the two readers. Sim- 
plicity and impersonal instruction are thus secured and the 
dangers of listening to mere opinion and personal deduction 
are averted. 

Instead of the customary doxology of orthodox Chris- 
tianity, the closing exercise consists of the repetition of what 
is termed the Scientific Statement of Being, followed by the 
first three verses of the third chapter of St. John's first 
Epistle, and a benediction quoted from the Bible. Taken to- 
gether they constitute an impressive conclusion of the services. 
The Scientific Statement of Being and the verses from St. 
John which follow are the very essence of Christian Science. 

"There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in mat- 
ter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God 
is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth ; matter is mortal error. 
Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and tem- 
poral. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. 
Therefore man is not material ; he is spiritual."^ 

"Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed 
upon us, that we should be called the sons of God; therefore 
the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not. Beloved, 
now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what 
we shall be : but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall 
be like Him ; for we shall see Him as He is. And every man 
that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself, even as He is 
pure."2 

The observance of the Sacrament or Lord's supper difiFers 
from the practice of other religious denominations in being a 
commemoration not of Jesus' last supper with the disciples, 
but of the breakfast after the ascension. The Passover, which 
Jesus ate with His disciples on the night before His crucifixion 
was a sad supper which closed forever Jesus' concession to ritu- 
alism. The Christian Science communion service commemo- 

^Science and Health, page 468. 
^ist John HI, 1-3. 

136 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT 

rates the spiritual meeting of the Saviour and the disciples after 
the resurrection in the bright morning hours on the shores of 
the Sea of Galilee, and the morning meal which they shared 
in the dawn of a new light. The service is without the use of 
material emblems. It is wholly spiritual. "If Christ, Truth, 
has come to us in demonstration, no other commemoration is 
requisite, for demonstration is Immanuel, or God With Us; 
and if a friend be with us, why need we memorials of that 
friend?"^ 

In that service. Christian Scientists "bow before Christ, 
Truth, to receive more of his reappearing and silently to com- 
mune with the divine Principle, Love. They celebrate their 
Lord's victory over death, his probation in the flesh after 
death, its exemplification of human probation, and his spirit- 
ual and final ascension above matter, or the flesh, when he rose 
out of material sight."" 

Like the Communion Service, so with the Baptismal Ser- 
vice. There is no provision in the church order of service for 
observance of the rite of baptism by outward forms, either by 
sprinkling or by immersion. Baptism is defined as a spiritual 
or new birth, and is interpreted as a purification from error. 
"The baptism of Spirit, washing the body of all the impurities 
of the flesh, signifies that the pure in heart see God and are 
approaching spiritual life and its demonstration."-^ 

Mrs. Eddy's teachings on the subject of audible prayer are 
outlined at length in the first chapter of the Christian Science 
Text-Book. In the Christian Science services, both on the 
Sabbath and on Wednesday evenings, no audible prayers except 
the Lord's prayer are offered, but provision is made for silent 
prayer as a regular part of the exercise. 

The position of the Church Reader is a revival of an an- 
cient church office. The Christian Science Church maintains 



^Science and Health, page 34. 
^Ibid, page 35. 
^Ibid, page 241. 

137 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

no choir. Its musical services are rendered by a soloist, the 
organist and the congregation. Twenty-six lesson-sermons are 
taken for the twenty-six Sundays of the first six months of the 
year. Each of these is made up of a Golden Text, a selection 
from the Scriptures for responsive reading, and correlative 
passages from the Bible and Science and Health. These selec- 
tions are read alternately by the Second and the First Readers, 
respectively, without comment. The same subjects are re- 
peated for the closing six months of the year, but with different 
passages from the Bible and Science and Health. This is the 
uniform service of the Christian Science Church throughout 
the world. 

The fact that the lesson-sermon is studied at home each 
day of the week, preliminary to the Sunday services, warrants 
the remark that nothing in any other religious denomination 
approaches this simplicity and unity of service and thorough 
study of the Bible by the membership. 

The mid-week testimony meetings of Christian Scientists 
are led by the First Reader. Those who have been healed or 
who have been transformed or reformed by Christian Science 
influences bear testimony with grateful hearts to these benefits. 
These mid-week services are filled with Christian Scientists 
and others interested. The attendance equals and in many 
cases exceeds the attendance at the Sunday services. Church 
sittings are free to all. The Sabbath morning service affords 
the remarkable spectacle of churches often crowded to their 
fullest capacity, to hear a simple lesson-sermon, without a 
preaching service and with an absence of elaborate musical 
programme, oratory or sensationalism. More remarkable still, 
the same simple service is repeated in the evening to the same 
body of earnest Christian students. 

The Christian Science Church maintains between five hun- 
dred and six hundred free reading rooms, besides an extensive 
system for the free distribution of Christian Science literature. 

15S 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT 

Christian Science has not only a simple democratic founda- 
tion; it represents the application, on a large scale, of the 
methods and means of the early church to the needs of 
humanity as these exist to-day. In its inception and develop- 
ment the founder has nowhere better displayed her genius than 
in her choice of the best features of other Christian denomina- 
tions and in her ability to create and organize a Christian 
brotherhood, analogous to the apostolic church, that should be 
democratic, independent, congregational. "It is cemented to- 
gether," says Carol Norton, "not by dogma, organic authority, 
or officialism, but by the tenets of a common faith and the 
scientific unity deduced from an exact metaphysical premise 
and its resultant proof. Creed, form, ceremony, and traditional 
ecclesiastical authority find no place in the religion of Chris- 
tian Science ; and its founder and all authorized teachers place 
no stress on materialistic, philosophical speculation, or guess- 
ing, in the realm of its curative therapeutics. It is an exact 
mental science, and as such proves itself." 

A distinguishing feature of the membership of the Chris- 
tian Science Church is loyalty to the founderof the Church and 
to the regulations for personal guidance which the by-laws pre- 
scribe. These by-laws, it may be remarked, form a code of 
Christian living which finds an astonishing degree of con- 
formity in the lives of Christian Scientists. 

In the face of widespread misrepresentation and persecu- 
tion, Mrs. Eddy has inculcated the spirit of non-resistance 
according to the standards of Jesus. A policy of non-retalia- 
tion marks the ways and means of establishing Christian 
Science. The following church by-laws from the Manual illus- 
trate this point: 

"A member of this church shall not publish nor cause to 
be published an article that is uncharitable or impertinent to- 
wards religion, medicine, the courts, or the laws of the land." 

"Neither animosity, nor mere personal attachment, should 
impel the motives or acts of the members of the Mother 

139 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

Church. In Science, divine Love alone governs man; and a 
Christian Scientist reflects the sweet amenities of Love, in 
rebuking sin, in true brotherHness, charitableness, and forgive- 
ness. The members of this church should daily watch and 
pray to be delivered from all evil, from prophesying, judging, 
condemning, counseling, influencing or being influenced erro- 
neously." 

The second, a rule for motives and acts, is required to be 
read at each service on the first Sunday of each month in the 
Mother Church and the branch churches : 

"He who dated the Christian era is the ensample in Chris- 
tian Science. Careless comparison, or irreverent references to 
Christ Jesus is abnormal in the Christian Scientist, and is pro- 
hibited. When it is necessary to show the great gulf between 
Christian Science and theosophy, hypnotism or spiritualism, 
do it, but without hard words. The wise man saith, 'A soft 
answer turneth away wrath.' However despitefuUy used and 
misrepresented by the churches or the press, in return employ 
no violent invective, and do good unto your enemies when the 
opportunity occurs." 

The last rule is made so imperative that any departure 
from it disqualifies a member for office in the church or the 
Board of Lectureship and renders him liable to discipline and 
possibly dismissal from the Mother Church. 

The financial plan of maintaining the Mother Church is the 
perfection of democratic simplicity. It calls for a regular con- 
tribution of only $i.oo per annum from its membership. This 
method obviates the necessity of begging appeals for funds. 
It lays no onerous burdens upon a few, but gives each member 
an opportunity to contribute to the financial support of the 
church in a manner that involves no hardship. 

The fraternal spirit among Christian Scientists is a distin- 
guishing feature of the Church. In no ethical or brotherhood 
society and in none of the orthodox churches is this spirit so 
noticeable or characteristic. The institution of a body of 
Christian Science practitioners connected with the several 

140 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT 

churches whose names and addresses are published monthly in 
the Christian Science Journal, put Christian Scientists in touch 
with every local church and society in the world. In case of re- 
moval to a different city it establishes a bond of unity and a 
spirit of helpfulness which ties all Scientists together and 
makes them one body of believers, — fellow-members and fel- 
low-worshippers. 



141 



V. 

SIMILARITY BETWEEN THE PRIMITIVE CHRIS- 
TIAN CHURCH AND CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

nnHE early Christian church was a society; a free and 
■■- ordered brotherhood ; a true democracy. It was founded 
upon the teachings of Christ Jesus, the greatest socialist who 
ever lived. The society Jesus formed had no recognition, place 
nor permanency for sorrow or suffering as irremediable phases 
of human existence or as realities of being. His healing min- 
istry was a demonstration of the fact that they were no part 
of God's creation. Every evil he sought to remove ; every dis- 
ease he loved to heal. His whole aim was to inculcate the 
understanding which could, and so far as He was understood, 
did eliminate them. 

The highest possible ethical ideal or standard of conduct, 
love for humanity, was the foundation and the superstructure 
of the early Christian church. It promoted the general wel- 
fare; it made the concern of the individual the concern of the 
whole community ; it established an equality of possession and 
of ministry to each man's needs ; it brought healing to the sick, 
and satisfaction to mind and heart ; it proclaimed the kingdom 
of heaven as a condition at hand, and not as belonging to a 
distant and uncertain future. Its relation was not merely a 
relationship to God ; it included relationship to men, a fellow- 
ship, and brotherly compassion which made its ministry to 
others' needs expressions of the love of God. dwelling in its 
adherents. It was a religion the poor man could understand ; 
it was a new expression of fraternity, of real democracy ; it 
expressed the spirit of cooperation in which the interest of the 
individual was the interest of tlie whole. Socialism can find 

142 



SIMILARITY OF PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

no higher content of Hfe than those ideals which were realized 
by the Christian society which Christ Jesus established on 
earth. 

Jesus instituted no form of church government, nor do His 
teachings afford any sanction for the establishment of a priest- 
hood or ministerial class. He made no provision for the divine 
influence to be conveyed from one human being to another, 
but taught that "God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him 
must do so in spirit and in truth." He instituted no special in- 
clusive character of ecclesiastical priesthood as an instrument 
or vehicle of divine mercy. Nor did he provide for a corpo- 
rate and divinely organized church having a monopoly of the 
Holy Ghost, with a set of officers who should direct its affairs. 
The institutional life of the apostolic church was of the most 
rudimentary character. 

If we turn to the religious history of the centuries that have 
elapsed since Anno Domini one, we find that the nearest ap- 
proximation to the spirit and life of the early Christian church 
is afforded by the Christian Science Church, wherein is found 
the largest degree of freedom from the trammels which organ- 
ized Christianity has accumulated during the past seventeen 
centuries. In general structure the Christian Science church 
closely resembles that of the primitive Christian church, and 
like the early church "possesses one and the same faith 
throughout the whole world." The early Christian church was 
imbued with a living faith in God, and Christ Jesus, by whose 
teachings it was bound together by simple ties of fellowship 
and Christian accord and activity. It was a society which 
linked together its members by the mystic tie of spiritual com- 
munion ; a church in which Christ was the divine authority 
and over which he reigned. Like it Christian Science exhibits 
a religious faith, which binds its followers all over the world 
in true Christian fellowship, ,a faith that is instinct with vitality 
and is the inspiration of its religious life and activity. 

143 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

The tenets of the Christian Science church leave no room 
for theological bickering, for a multitude of warring sects, or 
for a confusing clash over doctrines, dogmas, creeds or ques- 
tions of apostolic succession. Christian Science under the 
inspiration of a leader who has followed the guidance of the 
Holy Spirit finds the truth in the teachings of Jesus. It is 
striving to do that which the Master and his apostles taught. 
Its system of doctrine is based upon the inspired word of God 
and is limited to the express statement of Holy Scriptures, 
free from later partisan and theoretical accretions. It lays no 
requirements upon its followers for a verbal subscription to 
theological formulas and traditions, which are mere husks and 
shells that, to use the language of a religious writer, "ultimate 
in a dyspeptic and diseased Christianity." It insists upon the 
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth ; for therein 
alone is peace and unity. 

"Christian Science," declares the founder, "honors God, as 
no other theory honors Him, and it does it in the way of His 
appointing, by doing many wonderful works through the divine 
name and nature. . . . Christianity will never be based on 
a divine Principle and so found to be unerring, until its abso- 
lute Science is reached. When this is accomplished, neither 
pride, prejudice, bigotry, nor envy, can wash away its founda- 
tion, for it is built upon the rock. Christ.''^ 

On this basis Christian Science is reconciling Jew and Chris- 
tian as the early church united Jew and Gentile, bond and free, 
for it is the operative ethical principle which binds Old and 
New Testaments in indissoluble union. It furnishes a basis 
upon which labor and capital may be reconciled and opens the 
way to the solution of the economic and industrial difficulties 
with which the success of organized Christianity in our day 
is so inextricably involved. On its platform of Christly love 
and good works it will persuade the heathen world that Chris- 
tianity is something more than an imposition of eastern man- 

^Science and Health, page 484. 

144 



SIMILARITY OF PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

ners and an alien civilization upon an unwilling Orient, just 
as the early church softened and moulded the life in Rome. It 
is slowly but surely knitting together all nations and races in a 
Catholicism which will ultimately realize those highest ideals 
of Christianity which with prophetic discernment, Professor 
Briggs so eloquently describes as the one Catholic church which 
will speedily draw all mankind into the kingdom of our God 
and Saviour. 

The primitive Christian church was a new religious move- 
ment, a great and living faith, a new expression of true 
religious fraternity and Christian fellowship. It fulfilled 
its Founder's command to preach the gospel, to heal the sick 
and to establish the kingdom of heaven upon earth. In it the 
basis of union was a changed life and the preeminence of 
spiritual gifts over official rule; the equality of all Christians 
except as the well-ordering of the community required a 
division of functions. The real source of this organization 
was inward and spiritual, or to quote Professor E. C. Moore, 
"the original Christianity was an enthusiasm, an inspiration, 
an idealism for which no organization was needed." Like 
it the Christian Science church is a lay member's church, in 
which equality of spiritual gifts and functions find its best 
expression. 

The simplicity of the religious services of the early church 
is paralleled by the quiet yet deep enthusiasm of the Christian 
Science body, the association of believers held together by a 
spirit of Christian unity and a common hope. Both churches 
are distinguished by the spirituality of their teachings and by 
the exercise of the healing power of the gospel of Christ Jesus. 
This spiritual fervor to-day lightens the burdens of men, re- 
creates social conditions and introduces that democracy of 
spirit and the law of loving fellowship which marked the early 
Christians. 



145 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

The early church made no distinction between Jew and 
Gentile. Jesus' gospel was to be preached to every creature 
and all were welcome to its fellowship. It held, as Peter ex- 
claimed, that "God is no respecter of persons : but every nation 
that feareth before Him and worketh righteousness, is ac- 
cepted with Him." Christian Science measures up to this 
standard : it is a universal religion. It appeals to all classes and 
conditions of men. Its clientele is the human race. 

In an age when Protestant confessions of faith have been 
generally cast aside as inadequate, and the movement for 
revision of old, and the establishment of new creeds, persists in 
spite of every obstacle and every resistance; in an age when 
the current of thought at work during our century is working 
now more powerfully than ever, it must be evident to all who 
know, that in a very few years, as Professor Briggs has justly 
remarked, not a single Protestant or Catholic confession of 
faith will retain binding authority in any denomination. It is 
in this age that Christian Science presents its platform of 
religious belief, identical with the verities of the Christian 
religion as expressed in the Apostles' and the Xicene creeds 
as originally understood and applied. 

The Christian Science tenets and the healing ministry fur- 
nish a basis of faith and works upon which Jew and Gentile, 
Evangelicals, Catholics, Churchmen, Atheists, Greeks, Orientals 
and Rationalists, not merely may be but are bemg bound to- 
gether in Christian fellowship. Christian Science rises in a 
pyramid of grace above the tombs of dead theories and parties 
and dreary wastes of human speculation. Its fundamental 
propositions are that God is infinite Truth, Life and Love, and 
that man is a spiritual creature made in God's image and like- 
ness. It is based on the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on 
the Mount, the Lord's Prayer and the Ninety-first Psalm. Its 
teachings admit no reality to evil, sin or death, as a part of the 
spiritual universe, in which God is all in all and man is His 

146 



SIMILARITY OF PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

image and likeness. It overturns "the whole dark pile of 
human mockeries" raised by a false scholastic theology whose 
teachings have ever been a dispensation of despair which for 
centuries has rested like a pall upon the race. 

Christ Jesus demonstrated the powerlessness of sin, sick- 
ness and death. His mission was to destroy the works of the 
devil and to bring life and immortality to light. "Christianity 
as Jesus taught it was not a creed, nor a system of ceremonies, 
nor a special gift from a ritualistic Jehovah; but it was the 
demonstration of divine Love casting out error and healing the 
sick, not merely in the name of Christ, or Truth, but in demon- 
stration of Truth as must be the case in the cycles of Divine 
light.^ 

^Science and Health, page 135. 



147 



VI. 

SPREAD OF THE MOVEMENT. 

THE first Christian Science church building was dedicated 
at Oconto, Wisconsin, in 1887. Twelve years later there 
were twenty incorporated churches and ninety societies. The 
Christian Science Journal of October, 1910, publishes the 
addresses of 1,236 churches and societies, a gain of 1,126 
churches and societies, or at the average rate of 102 per annum 
for the past eleven years, within a fraction of two for every 
week in this entire period. 

No statistics are available from which to arrive at the 
value of the Christian Science church property. The extension 
to the ^Mother Church in Boston was completed at a cost of 
$2,000,000. The First Church in New York City cost 81,250,- 
000, the Second Church $1,000,000. Chicago has a number 
of costly churches. The aggregate amount of investment in 
Christian Science places of worship, it is safe to say, would 
aggregate from $25,000,000 to $28,000,000. The remarkable 
growth which this indicates has been attained without recourse 
to sensationalism or proselyting or the maintenance of an ex- 
pensive preaching force. The Christian Science church does 
not indulge in fairs, and supports no expensive choirs. It 
makes no attempts to fill the role of purveyors to the public, or 
to furnish musical entertainments and prayer services in com- 
petition with the theatre, lecture-room, or concert hall. The 
avenues of accession adopted are normal ones. They do not 
approach what may be termed revivalistic or sensational 
methods, but are self-sustained and representative of a religion 
of works. 

148 



SPREAD OF THE MOVEMENT 

No church buildings are allowed to be dedicated unless 
wholly free from debt. The wisdom of this rule will be amply- 
vindicated when one realizes the struggles of burdened ortho- 
dox Christian congregations to pay the interest on the debt 
which hangs over the church, and the rejoicing when after 
many years the point is reached when the mortgage is paid and 
a bonfire started with the cancelled papers amid loud acclaim. 

The movement has not been confined to any particular 
State or section of this country. Christian Science churches 
and societies are to be found in every state and territory in the 
Union. Elsewhere on this continent, as well as abroad, prog- 
ress has been widespread, as the following list will show. 
Christian Science has gained a foothold in 

Quebec Mexico 

Ontario England 

New Brunswick Scotland 

Saskatchewan Wales 

Nova Scotia Ireland 

Alberta Guernsey Channel Islands 

British Columbia France 

Manitoba Germany 

Bahama Islands Holland 

Panama Canal Zone Norway 

Argentine Republic Switzerland 

Italy China 

Philippine Islands Australia 

Sandwich Islands ^^^ S^^^h Wales 

Norway Transvaal 

Argentina, South America 

In all these countries Christian Science has either an incor- 
porated church or a society in process of being formed into a 
church. 

149 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

Speaking of the growth of the movement in England, Fred- 
erick Dixon, writing to one of the English periodicals, says : 

"There is one fact with respect to the Christian Science 
movement which no reasonable person has ever been known to 
question. It is that it is always gathering force with the most 
amazing persistency, and yet without the aid of any of those 
proselytizing methods which for centuries have been regarded 
as inseparable from a successful religious propaganda. Four- 
teen years ago the entire 'outward visible sign' of the movement 
in the United Kingdom could have been discovered in a tiny 
meeting of some half score of persons in a little west-end Lon- 
don flat. To-day that meeting has not only burst its original 
confines, it has gathered such momentum that the teaching 
which inspired it has permeated the religious and social life 
of the whole kingdom, and is flowing with the placid force of 
some great river through the whole empire." 

There are no available statistics that will indicate the exact 
membership of the 1,236 churches and societies. This is in 
conformity with the provisions of a By-Law of the Mother 
Church which reads as follows: "Christian Science shall not 
report for publication the number of the members of the 
Mother Church, nor that of the branch churches. According 
to the Scripture they shall turn away from personality and 
numbering the people." Therefore the Christian Science 
authorities do not publish statistics of membership. The fig- 
ures given by Dr. Carroll, a church statistician, are necessarily 
little else than mere guesswork. Assuming an average of two 
hundred members for each of the churches and societies the 
total membership would aggregate about 250,000. Recent esti- 
mates place the figure at 320,000. 

There is necessarily a degree of uncertainty as to how far 
the Christian Science movement has penetrated society, since 
there are large numbers of people who, while interested in the 
movement and attending service, are unwilling to announce 
their allegiance to the cause or to appear openly identified with 
Christian Science. But taking the aggregate estimated mem- 

150 



SPREAD OF THE MOVEMENT 

bership and following at a ratio similar to that adopted by the 
early Methodist church, this would give Christian Science a 
present following of about 1,750,000 to 2,000,000. According 
to a memorial presented at Conference, the early Methodist 
church claimed a following of 1,000,000, on an official mem- 
bership of 140,000. The celebrated alienist, Alexander Allen 
Hamilton, who spent some time at Pleasant View not long 
ago, placed the Christian Science following at 800,000; some 
have estimated it at 1,500,000; others at still higher figures. 
Taking into account the healing work of Christian Science 
practitioners, as evidenced by the enormous number of cures 
which these practitioners have effected, there is little doubt 
that Christian Science has in process of assimilation a pro- 
digious following, independent of the following and connec- 
tions which directly arise from the present Christian Science 
membership. It is impossible to estimate this outside follow- 
ing, except in a most general way. The cures accomplished 
are the most effective and powerful propaganda of Christian 
Science; they number, in the aggregate, hundreds of thous- 
ands and thus serve continually to extend the sphere of influ- 
ences of the movement. The outside following may be 
variously estimated at 400,000 to 500,000 people. It may, 
therefore, be safe to say that at present Christian Science has 
a membership and a following of about 2,000,000 to 2,500,000. 



151 



fart 3 



"The world is weary of new tracts of thought 

that lead to naught. 
Sick of quack remedies prescribed in vain 

For mortal pain; 
Yet still, above them all, one Figure stands, 

With outstretched hands.'' 



154 



I. 

MATERIALISM: THE BANE. 
I. 

HEGEL, the German philosopher, held that all true pro- 
gress, or, in other words, **The Consummation of the 
Infinite End," consists in the removal of the illusions which 
the human mind has created. Another great German philoso- 
pher, Immanuel Kant, declared that the sole use of philosophy 
is not so much the discovery of truth, as the prevention of 
error, and says, "I had to destroy [sham] knowledge to make 
room for rational faith." He distinguishes between human 
understanding and divine understanding; between the divine 
or only real mind, and the false human or mortal mind; be- 
tween human speculation and divine revelation. In so doing 
he has rendered the greatest possible service to religion. 

Gautama, the Buddha, taught that ignorance is the cause 
of all the evil in the world. It is the fruitful soil from which 
springs the fear-thought which has fettered human capacity 
and held mankind in bondage for ages. By fear I do not 
mean that sort of fear which is largely a physical trouble rather 
than a feeling. The bravest of men have known what this 
kind of fear means. "A coward is he," said Marshall Ney, 
"who boasts that he was never afraid." The story is told of 
a young soldier who, after a battle was questioned by the 
Colonel and confessed that he had been much alarmed, "but," 
he added, "I had my orders." The Colonel replied: "You 
were frightened but you did your duty nevertheless. You are 
a brave man." 

Fear on its physical side is an apprehension of personal 
danger. It always implies the consciousness of danger and 

155 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

the refusal or moral impossibility to face that danger. But 
fear which has its roots in sheer ignorance is the most deadly 
and widespread form of fear, far exceeding the physical fear 
or apprehension of recognized dangers which can be partially, 
if not wholly, overcome by force of will, the forgetfulness of 
self, or the sense of duty. Fear which is born of igorance is 
Homer's "doleful prophet of ill." It has found honor in 
every country and immortality in every land. The suggestions 
and forebodings of this calamity-prophet acquire a thousand- 
fold greater power because of the secret fears which material- 
ism has planted in the human heart. It is this sort of fear 
which makes us pessimists instead of optimists ; which creates 
a brood of morbid apprehensions that not only fill our sleeping 
but our waking hours with visions of dire impending ills and 
robs us of both physical and mental strength. 

Fear takes elasticity out of the step and courage out of the 
heart ; it wrinkles the brow, saddens the countenance, and robs 
the cheek of its bloom. It is at the bottom of the worry, 
anxiety and timidity which comes into our life. It creates the 
thousand and one subtle apprehensions, anxieties and morbid 
forebodings which blight the soul of man. It induces the 
attitude of mind which keeps one on the lookout for evil 
instead of good and leaves man subject to the assaults of 
doubt, misunderstanding and discouragement. "Fear," says 
Horace Fletcher, "is an acid which is pumped into one's atmos- 
phere. It causes mental, moral and spiritual asphyxiation and 
sometimes death ; death to energy and all growth." 

Fear plants the thought of old age in the human breast 
before the time and thus enfeebles the frame, weakens the 
voice, palsies the limbs and robs life of that serenity and 
comfort which should be the accompaniments of a beautiful 
old age, retaining to the last the brightness and sprightliness of 
its earlier years. It puts its withering touch on hope, aspira- 
tion, anticipation and the higher ideals of life. It points down- 

156 



MATERIALISM: THE BANE 

ward and not upward; it plants an open grave in the pathway 
of every human being. To the despairing it offers the pessi- 
mist's outlook upon life. To every burdened soul it brings 
naught of cheer and help, only the subtle and dismal sug- 
gestion, *Ts life worth living?" and so paralyzes the heart, from 
which courage and hope should never depart. 

"Oi all negative conditions the race is subject to, fear is 
the greatest. We are born cowards. Our mothers feared for 
us before we were born. We came into earth-life with a wail 
of fear. All who had anything to do with us feared something 
evil would happen to us. They were afraid we would catch 
cold, or the measles, or the whooping cough, or diphtheria, or 
die of summer complaint. Somebody feared all the time that 
we would get scalded or frozen, or fall out of bed, or down- 
stairs, or into the well. 

"When we were old enough to be afraid we feared our 
parents, our teachers, the minister, the dark, the devil, and, 
even feared God, whom St. John says is love. Later, we were 
afraid of failure in business, of fire, afraid the election would 
start someone tinkering with the tariff or our blessed money 
system. We were afraid on land or sea, or of fire or water, 
cold and heat, wind and hail, lightning and cyclone, earthquake 
and tidal wave, and yet we wonder why there are so many 
sick people. But the silliest of all fears is the fear of mi- 
crobes."^ 

II. 

The body is a phenomenon of thought and it faithfully 
reflects our habitual attitude of mind or our mental condition. 
Free the mind from harassing fears, give free rein to hope and 
aspiration and the body would come into harmony with this 
state of being, instead of suffering those abnormal and diseased 
conditions which fear induces. That we shall never get physi- 
cal freedom until we get mental freedom is fast becoming a 

^Dr. George W. Carey, Los Angeles, Gal., Herald, 

157 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

truism. A hopeless man is never on the high road to pros- 
perity. All mankind is engaged in a struggle to prolong life, to 
achieve success, and the fighter who is controlled by fear is 
whipped at the outset before a blow is struck or a gun fired. 

Fear, in the final analysis, is a purely mental process. It is 
something which has no more absolute reality than has the 
darkness which flees before the light. It is but a bogey of the 
imagination; without real entity or substance or actual power 
over our lives ; it is not a normal but an abnormal or negative 
condition of the human mind. Whence, then, originates this 
fear-thought which darkens the skies of human experience and 
distresses and torments the human race? Is it not rooted in a 
gross and frigid materialism and a no less frigid theology, both 
equally blind to the real nature of man, the real significance of 
life, the real import of the things which make for man's best 
welfare and happiness? 

The world of the materialist is ever a world of error, of 
ignorance of the real truth about man and man's destiny. It 
cannot in the very nature of things ever become a world of 
happiness for the human race. Eliminate fear, with all its 
hideous and fateful forms and manifestations, from human 
consciousness and we may expect to see the millennium appear, 
but it will never cast its beams athwart the sky of human exist- 
ence as long as the teachings of a materialistic science holds 
sway over the human mind. The philosophy of materialism is 
the philosophy of despair; the philosophy of the pessimist, 
founded upon the evidence of the material senses, is the plii- 
losophy of the serpent of material sense that has cursed the 
race from time immemorial. 

The materialist, the atheist, the agnostic, the sceptic, the 
rationalist, are a precious quintette of doubters, disbelievers 
and pessimists. They are substantially agreed in their doubts 
concerning almost everything under the sun, whether it be of 
things in heaven above or in the earth beneath, or the waters 

158 



MATERIALISM: THE BANE 

under the earth. Their striking characteristic is a rampant 
scepticism which has lost itself in an admission that it knows 
nothing, not even its own ignorance. There is no soul in the 
world they declare; no spiritual life, no spiritual universe in 
which man may exercise his spiritual faculties. There is no 
God, and consequently no faith in a Supreme Being, no ade- 
quate basis for hope or aspiration. They contend that man 
springs from a tiny grain of protoplasm and lives in a perish- 
able framework of mere physical organs ; that he has an animal 
nature derived from the tadpole or ape-like ancestors ; that he 
lives in a material environment, is dominated by animal in- 
stincts and, like the beasts, is doomed to perish after a brief 
existence. 

What is the picture or model which this materialistic quin- 
tette is constantly holding up to human gaze? Is it not one of 
imperfection, of angular outline, of deformity and hideous 
imagery, of an existence in which decay and death are ever 
present? Their conception of the world in which mankind is 
placed, is it not a world in which sin, disease and misery are 
accepted as normal concomitants of human life and in which 
doubt, fear and despair are regarded as inseparable to it ? And 
does not human experience faithfully reflect this picture? 

The materialist lives his daily life, knowing nothing but 
that which his material senses have brought within the range of 
his experience. Ignorant of the existence of God, or blindly 
worshipping some unknown power in superstition and fear, 
he sees nothing but obstacles to life and happiness and goes to 
his grave believing sin, sickness, sorrow, pain and death to be 
the sum and substance of man's existence. Unfortunately, the 
great mass of the world's inhabitants still accept or subscribe to 
this materialistic philosophy of life, to which Goethe has given 
poetic expression in these words : 

"By eternal laws of iron ruled, must all fulfil the circle of 
their destiny." 

159 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

Death hangs over the world as a grim spectre, bhghting our 
hopes and tearing asunder our sweetest and tenderest relations. 

Materialism is not a book of hope ; its gospel is not a gospel 
of good cheer but of despair. For the immortal soul it substi- 
tutes fleeting sense and gathers gloom where sunshine really 
fills the skies of human life, knowing not that life is more than 
the body and lives triumphant over every material condition; 
knowing not that the transition called death is an awakening 
rather than a sleeping; that we who are Still involved in this 
mortal coil are in the more dream-like and unreal condition : 

"Peace, peace ! he is not dead, he doth but sleep — 
He hath awakened from the dream of life — 

*Tis we, who, lost in stormy visions, keep 
With phantoms an unprofitable strife." 

— Shelley's Adonais. 

Materialism hangs the calendar on the wall with its despair- 
ing motto : "Time is fleeting and death is certain." It knows 
naught of the timelessness of time; naught of the eternal 
NOW in human life, into which the to-morrow never comes ; nor 
does it know that man cannot wander from the present, which 
is infinite, to a future, which would be finite. The materialist 
is submissive to death as being in supposed accord with the in- 
evitable laws of life. "We are agnostics," says Philip Vivian, 
"and though some may preserve an agnosticism concerning the 
continuance of consciousness after death, we are all resigned to 
the inevitable." 

In the words of one of the stanzas of Mrs. Huxley's poem 
entitled "Browning's Funeral," the last three lines of which 
Professor Huxley requested to be inscribed upon his grave- 
stone in St. Marylebone Cemetery, in East Finchley: 

"And if there be no meeting past the grave, 

And if all is darkness, silence, yet 'tis rest ; 
Be not afraid, ye waiting hearts that weep, 
For God still giveth 'His beloved sleep,' 
And if an endless sleep He wills, so best." 

160 



MATERIALISM: THE BANE 
III. 

The materialistic notion that there is no outside power, no 
future to be feared and no terrible and grewsome fate to over- 
take us, may perhaps enable some when life reaches its close 
to "wrap the drapery of their couch about them and lie down 
to pleasant dreams." But even this poor comfort is denied 
the human race. A materialistic theology follows closely upon 
the trail of the materialistic scientist. Its fear-fiend stands 
ever ready to conjure up pictures of a dread hereafter; to rob 
man of even that fancied security which a materialistic doc- 
trine that death actually does end all may afford some hearts. 
It arouses the direst apprehensions concerning what is beyond 
the veil. It tells us that this life does not end in the grave; 
that man is a miserable sinner under the curse of a broken law ; 
that life here is but a prelude to an unending life beyond this 
vale of tears. It presents the picture of a vengeful Jehovah 
who in wrath will blast our souls everlastingly. It paints the 
tortures of a materialistic hell of suffering; tells us there is no 
hope for the wicked, no peace here or hereafter. The whole 
ecclesiastical doctrine of the future has always been and still 
is materialism of the purest type. It teaches that the material 
body of ''the just" shall rise and dwell in a material heaven, 
that all the joys of the most advanced civilization await the 
pious believer in paradise, while an all-loving Father reserves 
eternal fires for the godless — about nine-tenths of the human 
race. 

"The punishment taught by the orthodox expounders of 
Scripture is merciless and everlasting, administered extrane- 
ously, like a cruel master would torment his helpless slave for 
his own vindictive gratification or 'glory,' as they have called it. 
The doctrine supposes that God creates His children without 
their volition and then damns them for His own glory or grat- 
ification, and this, too, according to one branch of the church, 

161 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

without giving them the power to escape — being 'predestined' 
to be lost."^ An orthodox writer has said that "God keeps 
them alive forever in order to torture them forever." No 
being short of an unconscionably wicked fiend could be guilty 
of such a purpose, and yet this is the source from which an old 
hymn writer has drawn his poetic inspiration which finds ex- 
pression in these monstrous verses : 

"Conceived in sin, O wretched state, 

Before we drew our breath. 
The first young pulse begins to beat 

Iniquity and death. 

My thoughts on awful subjects roll 

Damnation and the dead. 
What horrors seize a guilty soul 

Upon a dying bed. 

For day and night in their despite 
Their torment's smoke ascendeth. 

Their pain and grief have no relief, 
Their anguish never endeth. 

Who live to die in misery 

And bear eternal woe ; 
And live they must while God is just 

That He may plague them so." 

The realistic and grewsome images which theologians 
have drawn of the abode of the damned are still current in the 
sermonizing of our modern pulpits as a means of terrorizing 
the obdurate or impenitent, beneath whose feet Milton pic- 
tured an awful pit, 

"A dungeon horrible, on all sides round, 

As one great furnace, flamed ; yet from those flames 

No light, but rather darkness visible." 

Hell is described by the theologians as unspeakable tor- 
ment, as a place with either literal or metaphysical fire, "where 

^A. P. Barton in The Bible and Eternal Punishment. 

162 



MATERIALISM: THE BANE 

the worm dieth not," a place where lost souls dwell, to use the 
language of a recent writer, "amid never-ending, relentless and 
entirely purposeless tortures of the most revolting, sickening 
diabolism, mad-house delirium ever conjured up. All this we 
are told was premeditatedly and for His glory, conceived and 
provided by a tender, loving Father for a large majority of 
His children." 

The old theologians have said that the Bible teaches this 
monstrous doctrine ; and instances are not wanting of the most 
revolting descriptions of hell and its torments by preachers of 
more modern times. Nor am I exaggerating the picture nor 
exceeding the facts. There is a book extant which happened 
to fall into my hands by chance, that describes the horrors 
of the infernal regions in an even more realistic fashion. Hell 
is pictured as a region of darkness and torment, a place from 
which escape is barred by great iron gates, where the damned 
must stand in endless torture of body and soul. And this book 
is a part of the educational literature of a prominent religious 
denomination and is issued as a rehgious work for the instruc- 
tion of children. 

IV. 

Years ago the appearance of Halley's comet produced the 
most paralyzing effect upon the ignorant and the superstitious. 
Peasants in European countries, history tells us, were in 
momentary expectation that the comet would come in contact 
with the earth and smash it to pieces. Messengers went 
through the streets blowing their horns to awaken the people 
to the fact that the world was coming to an end. Multitudes 
were completely prostrated; thousands were made ill with 
terror, others became violently insane, and scores committed 
suicide. Mothers poisoned their children ; men confessed to 
crimes, persons dropped dead at first sight of the comet ; others 
ordered their coffms to be ready for the terrible calamity. 

163 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

Not only in the old countries and in the dark ages, but in this 
country, in recent years, the appearance of a comet has filled 
the minds of large numbers of people with almost paralyzing 
fear and distress. In our large cities great bodies of the pop- 
ulace paraded the streets with crucifixes in their hands, their 
terror-stricken faces turned toward the sky. Others fell upon 
their knees in the streets to pray. Miners refused to continue 
their usual vocations; farm hands refused to work in the 
fields; night services were held in southern Negro churches, 
all in preparation for the fateful day when the earth would be 
swept out of existence by the comet's tail ! 

But science exploring the realms of space finds sun and 
stars and planets revolving in their orbits, held to their ap- 
pointed courses by the law of gravitation. Astronomers now 
assure us that there is absolutely no occasion whatever for fear 
because of the appearance of a comet in the sky; that comets 
have been visiting the earth periodically and harmlessly for un- 
told ages. This filmy, gaseous train of minute, intangible par- 
ticles, illuminated by the sun's rays and millions of miles distant 
from the earth, has no real influence or power whatever over 
our lives. What then was it that produced the terrifying 
effects which I have described? Fear! And to what is this 
fear clearly traceable? To the comet? Nay, to ignorance, 
illusion, superstition, delusion, false beliefs or false concepts. 
These are all phases of one and the same thing, viz. : error. 
But no one will seriously affirm that this fear was other than 
tremendously real while it lasted ; nor deny the reality of those 
terrifying effects which it produced. 

What is true of the comet, is true, in a sense, of what we 
personify as evil. By a stretch of the imagination we may 
regard it as something which sweeps across the horizon of 
human life bringing wreck and ruin in its path. But as far as 
any real essence is concerned, evil is more attenuated than the 
comet's tail. It has no actuality nor visibility. It has no sub- 

164 



MATERIALISM: THE BANE 

stance, entity nor potency. It has neither life nor intelHgence. 
Evil is not power ; it is but a mockery of strength. God is not 
a creator of evil and there is no other creator. 

Evil is a materialistic and theological figment of the brain. 
True there are numberless ill effects in human experience which 
we erroneously attribute to evil, personified as his Satanic 
Majesty. The real cause is to be found in our false belief or 
self -conceived assumption that evil as as real as good. Elimi- 
nate the belief that evil is not of divine origin and is not and 
cannot be real in the sense that only God's creation is real and 
the eiTects of that belief will disappear from our lives. 

Many a person is filled with dire forebodings because of 
belief in the reality of evil and of sickness, sin and suffering 
as the sure and unescapable adjuncts of human existence. But 
human experience shows that it is not the things of to-day, but 
the fear of what may happen to-morrow that clouds our lives 
with gloom ; that robs us of peace and many an otherwise 
enjoyable experience. *T have lived to be eighty years of age," 
said an octogenarian, "and nearly all the troubles of my life 
never happened." 

Evil is terribly real so long as we are obsessed by the dark 
fears with which it oppresses the spirit. By evil I do not mean 
the ills and miseries of life, which are bad enough, heaven 
knows, but that which human belief has personified as the pro- 
ducing cause of these experiences. No doubt evil seems quite 
as real to the apprehension of many as were those appearances 
of the comet which terrorized the ignorant. And so long as 
the belief in its reality and malignity maintains its hold upon 
cur minds just so long will we be subject to the mesmeric influ- 
ence of this something which is nothing; this something which 
is without spiritual identity and has no real existence or power. 
What we carry is a burden of false beliefs, and it is these 
beliefs which work out their pernicious effects upon both mind 
and body. When these beliefs become cumulative, that is, gen- 

165 



. ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

erally held, they constitute a law of mortal mind which holds 
the race in subjection to its sway. Nay, more, evil becomes a 
veritable Juggernaut, before which, like the ignorant and super- 
stitious masses of the East, we are prone to prostrate ourselves. 

Astronomical science has driven out of human conscious- 
ness the fear of the comet which oppressed the race for cen- 
turies. How did it accomplish this result so fraught with bene- 
fit to humanity ? By revealing the truth concerning the motions 
of the heavenly bodies and the orbit of these erratic visitants 
of our skies. It has taught us to witness the appearance of a 
comet with the utmost unconcern and indifference ; we even 
wax facetious when its tail disappears in thin air as the tail 
of Halley's comet did the other day. 

Who will expose the falsity of these material, conflicting 
mortal opinions and beliefs concerning the reality and power of 
evil — which are but a mockery of intelligence — and thus relieve 
the mind of the fears w^hich have shadowed and blighted human 
lives from time immemorial ? Who will give us an understand- 
ing of the truth which will annihilate these erroneous beliefs 
and their illusive conditions, and so open the way to the enjoy- 
ment of our heaven-bestowed harmony? 

The teachings of materialistic science and a materialistic 
theology concerning man's origin and destiny, instead of re- 
lieving the human mind, have only burdened it with innumer- 
able and unwarranted fears. What is needed is a true science 
that is not only scientific but religious and which will destroy 
the errors of material sense, and rid the human mind of its 
false concepts concerning man and his future. Truth, the 
truth which actually corrects our mistaken ideas, will accom- 
plish the conquest of fear, it will deliver the human race from 
the well-nigh intolerable burden of misery which fear has im- 
posed upon it. Like the light which dispels the darkness, 
even so the real truth about things will drive out from the 



166 



MATERIALISM: THE BANE 

human consciousness the fear-thought which for so long has 
enslaved mankind. 

Fear is the bane of human Hfe. Its antidote is to be found 
in a true, demonstrable science that will dissipate the ignorance 
which now envelopes the mind. Is Christian Science that 
antidote? Is it a true, demonstrable science? Will it efifect- 
ually dispel the fear-thought which now burdens the minds of 
men and plant hope where despair now reigns; will it bring 
peace where dread apprehensions have for so long enslaved 
our spirits ? Let us consider its doctrines and healing ministry 
in the light of these enquiries. 



167 



II. 

IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE THE ANTIDOTE? 

Its Teachings. 

THROUGH the Christian Science Text-book, ''Science and 
Health, with Key to the Scriptures," in which the teach- 
ings of Christian Science and the method of demonstration 
are set forth, Mary Baker Eddy makes answer concerning 
that which philosophers, scientists and theologians for cen- 
turies have labored to unfold, viz : the nature and attributes 
of God, of man and the universe. The Science which she un- 
folds introduces new views of the teaching and works of Jesus 
Christ; it offers a solution of the baffling mystery of evil, sin, 
disease and death. Mortal existence is declared to be an 
enigma ; every day is a mystery concerning which the testi- 
mony of the material senses cannot inform us what is real or 
what is delusive; but the revelations of Christian Science 
"unlock the treasures of Truth." 

Concerning these subjects Christian Science purports to 
give a fresh statement of truth. It involves a startling and 
momentous change in human belief. It discards all human 
speculations, theories, superstitions and irrational concepts 
concerning God, His being and intent, and His relation to that 
which He created, and undertakes to declare a correct appre- 
hension and right understanding of the true God and God's 
nature, qualities and 'law. It holds unequivocally to the record 
of creation, as contained in the first chapter of the Old Testa- 
ment, the narrative of the spiritual creation, the complete and 
finished work of Deity. The record contained in the second 
chapter of Genesis, in which man is represented as having been 

168 



IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE THE ANT I DOT Ef 

formed of the dust of the ground, is declared to be antagonistic 
to the first account, and, therefore, inconsistent, false and un- 
real. In its analysis of the first record, which clearly indicates 
the creation by an omnipotent and omniscient God, of an abso- 
lutely perfect and everlasting universe, the term man is used 
in a generic sense, as meaning the full, complete and perfect 
reflection of God; the divine image or manifestation which 
includes every idea that expresses good, not excepting our 
true, eternal selfhood. 

To the materialist Mrs. Eddy declares that the physical 
universe, cognized by the five corporeal senses, "the world of 
sense perception," has no real existence or entity; that matter 
is non-intelligent and cannot perform any function of Mind; 
that Mind is self-existent, and the only state of self-existence 
in the universe; that there are no such things as atomic sub- 
stances or an atomic hfe basis ; in short, that matter reduced to 
its final nothingness is a mere name for a false concept. 

To the medical profession, entrenched for centuries in the 
conviction that man is a physical being, that disease lies hidden 
in the organs and tissues of the material body, and that mate- 
rial remedies are indispensable to its cure, Mrs. Eddy declares 
that sin and ignorance are the sources of physical ailments ; 
that divine Principle or Truth "fixed star-like in the under- 
standing" is the one sufficient remedy for both sin and sickness. 

The teachings of Christian Science, concerning an evil per- 
sonality, or Satan, are in sharp contrast to orthodox views, 
wherein we are taught to regard the Devil as something super- 
natural, something from which man cannot escape. Thi? 
horrible sense of the power of evil has hung upon and mil- 
dewed the human race ; its claims have deprived man of the 
dominion he has over evil. What is more paralyzing to en- 
deavor than to suppose there is opposed to us a mysterious 
power, a supernatural agency with which we cannot cope; 
which in spite of our every efifort may drag us down to in- 

169 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

finite punishment for the finite sins we have committed? 

In Christian Science good is regarded as natural and nor- 
mal : evil as illegitimate and abnormal. As a student of scien- 
tific Christianity, Mrs. Eddy recognized the prevalence of a 
mesmeric belief that evil is an entity, that it is potent. This 
pernicious belief she has fought to dispel by teaching that the 
belief in evil is all the evil there is and that this belief, acting 
through and upon mortals and things, procures all the phenom- 
ena of evil. The phenomena perceived and accepted through 
the ever-changing physical senses Christian Science character- 
izes as belief and not knowledge. It teaches that real knowl- 
edge is not based on human reasoning, but upon the truth, 
which is absolute, unchanging, and demonstrable. Belief may 
or may not be true, whereas knowledge in metaphysics is 
always true. The teaching of Christian Science includes the 
deduction that false belief is wholly responsible for the ills 
and sufferings experienced by mankind, and it has entered the 
arena of thought as the champion of all who would escape that 
iniquitous reign of ignorance, fear and superstition which the 
supposed presence and power of evil have in belief engendered. 

To the theologian, Mrs. Eddy declares that God is the 
author of all true being, the origin and source of all entity or 
existence; that His works are spiritual, righteous, unchanging 
and eternal ; that He is the conscious, energizing, governing 
and sustaining power of the universe, that His law means the 
completeness, perfection and harmonious operation of all that 
is. She further affirms that God does not create evil and is 
not responsible for it in any form. Evil can never lodge in 
His thought, else He were not wholly good. Evil is declared 
to have no origin in Spirit, no entity, no reality of God's mak- 
ing, and no standing nor existence in God's realm ; nor does 
God authorize the miseries of our earthly experience, that 
these lacking divine sanction have consequently no real entity 
or existence. 

170 



IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE THE ANTIDOTEf 

Hell, according to the teachings of Christian Science, is an 
abomination and a fraud, entitled only to the execration of 
mankind. It is declared to be an individual state of wretched 
consciousness, utterly unlike God, or the conceded essentials 
of (^od's being, an illegitimate monstrosity, which has no 
verity, no existence. The various schemes of salvation evolved 
in the solitude of the study and expressed in the teaching of 
scholastic theology Mrs. Eddy declares are founded upon 
the letter and not the spirit of the Scriptures and "dishonor 
every reasonable concept of the Deity." 

To the natural scientist floundering in the meshes of mate- 
rialism and agnosticism, and endeavoring to explain the facts 
of the universe upon the theory or assumption that matter is 
the fundamental constituent, Mrs. Eddy lays down the claim 
of Christian idealism, declaring that the right basis for all true 
science is Spirit, not matter; that Science is the law of Mind, 
not matter ; that this law has no relation to or recognition of 
matter, and that this Science overturns the testimony of the 
senses and reveals the existence of God and God's idea. 

Her teaching challenges the conclusions of materialist, 
philosopher and scientist alike, with its affirmation that all 
causation is through Mind; that every effect is a mental phe- 
nomenon; that neither life, truth, intelligence nor substance 
inhere in matter; that all that has real being is Infinite Mind 
and its infinite manifestation. 

11. 

It has been pointed out that the Christian Science concept 
of God is admirably set forth in the Westminster Confession 
of Faith which has been substantially adopted by all evangel- 
ical Christian churches. As the Christian Scientists worship 
the God of the orthodox church, there is therefore no ground 
for criticism as to the Christian Scientist's theological basis. 
The Westminster definition of God is as follows : 

171 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

"There is one living and true God, who is infinite in being 
and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts 
or passions, immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, 
almighty, most wise, most loving, gracious, long-suffering, 
abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, trans- 
gression and sin." 

Christian Science claims to be progressive and to mark an 
advance in religion, because it throws the strong light of 
science upon the nature and attributes of Deity, upon the 
teaching and work of the Christ, and because it makes clear 
and emphasizes the essential imperishable import of the Bible's 
spiritual message. 

In their profession of faith, the tenets of the Christian 
Science church include the fundamental doctrines of the 
Christian church, and all the essentials incorporated in a pure 
Christianity. The striking resemblance between these tenets 
and those of the Apostles' creed and the Nicene creed, which 
is declared to be the "sufficient statement of the Christian 
faith," will attest the orthodoxy of the following declarations 
concerning the Christian Science doctrinal beliefs: 

1. As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of 
the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life. 

2. We acknowledge and adore one supreme and infinite 
God. We acknowledge His Son, one Christ ; the Holy Ghost, 
or divine Comforter; and man in God's image and likeness. 

3. We acknowledge God's forgiveness of sin in the destruc- 
tion of sin and the spiritual understanding that casts out evil 
as unreal. But the belief in sin is punished so long as the 
belief lasts. ^ 

III. 

It should be premised just here that the Christian Science 
Text-book is not presented to the world as an endeavor to re- 
write the Bible, or to revise the teachings of Jesus Christ. It 
is not a new Bible which Christian Science contemplates, but 

1 Science and Health, page 497. 

172 



IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE THE ANTIDOTE? 

one and the same Bible, explained upon its spiritual basis, the 
aim being to make clear the essential, imperishable import of 
that Bible's spiritual messages. Christian Science does not 
undertake to proclaim a new God, but the one, only, true God ; 
nor does it make an attempt to set forth an improved Christ, 
it affirms that there is but one Christ, who is in the bosom of 
the Father, perfect, eternal, indestructible. 

Christian Science is declared to be a definite, systematic 
and demonstrable statement of the truth about the Christian- 
ity of Christ; the truth about God, man and the universe. It 
comes to a world full of sin, suffering, disease and death, 
offering illumination, spiritual stimulus, freedom and joy. It 
claims to be able to effect the healing and redemption of 
humanity; to replace long years of invalidism with joyful 
health ; to bring surcease from pain, the healing of all kinds of 
functional and organic diseases, and a new and inspiring sense 
of the nearness of Divine love and power; to open the Scrip- 
tures and lead to their daily study; to enable mankind to lead 
a purer, nobler life; to love God and men more truly; and to 
enable mankind to overcome human ills, or to bear them with 
less irritation and complaint. 

Christian Science is giving religious faith a new direction. 
It is placing the emphasis not upon things which are seen, but 
upon things which are not seen, real things, important things ; 
it teaches us to see in their true proportions the visible and 
the invisible, the temporal and the eternal. It is not so much 
concerned in escaping from a hell in the future as in banishing 
hell from present-day experience ; it is more active in bringing 
in Christ's kingdom of heaven on earth than in getting ready 
here for some future realm. 

Christian Science pronounces the visible universe and ma- 
terial man a poor counterfeit of the invisible universe and 
spiritual man. It affirms that only by acknowledging the 
supremacy of Spirit, which annuls the claim of matter, can 

173 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

mortals lay off mortality and find the indissoluble spiritual link 
which connects man with his Creator. It insists that our 
material theories must yield to spiritual ideas until the finite 
gives place to the Infinite; sickness to health, sin to holiness 
and God's kingdom comes in earth as in heaven. 

Christian Science declares that to matter is erroneously 
assigned the power and prerogative of spirit, so that man be- 
comes the most absolutely weak and inharmonious creature in 
the universe. Rising above physical theories, it excludes 
matter, resolves things into thoughts and replaces the objects 
of material sense with spiritual ideas. It is described as the 
science of Hfe and being, as a scientific system of metaphysical 
or Mind healing, based upon the assumption that the divine 
Mind governs the body, not partially, but wholly. Its system 
of treating disease is declared to be a practical one which can 
be understood and successfully and generally applied to the 
heahng of physical ailments of all kinds. It claims to be 
scientific, i. e., precise and undeviating, because based upon 
Principle and governed by unvarying rules. It declares that 
exact results are obtained when these rules are correctly ap- 
plied, and insists that sneers at the application of the word 
Science to Christianity cannot prevent that from being scien- 
tific which is based on divine Principle demonstrated according 
to a given rule and subjected to proof. It insists that the verity 
of its postulates can be demonstrated with scientific accuracy, 
and offers as incontestible proof the moral and spiritual 
changes wrought in the lives of its followers, and the healing 
works performed by its practitioners. It points to these heal- 
ing works as open and conclusive demonstrations of the valid- 
ity of its claims, and affirms that such cures are similar in 
character and modus to those instances of spiritual healing 
performed by the apostles in the early days of Christianity. 



174 



IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE THE ANTIDOTE? 

IV. 

Over and against the so-called natural laws which decree 
decrepitude or break-down as the result of overwork, trying 
climate, or any other supposed cause. Christian Science places 
the supremacy of spiritual law and insists that God is available 
to interpose a successful veto and with His immutable law to 
frustrate the attempted destruction of man. It teaches that 
even if break-down is due to sin, to moral weakness, the law 
of God can be applied to wipe out both the desire to sin and 
the fear of sinning, and to obliterate with the sin itself also 
every vestige of the consequence of sin, whether physical or 
otherwise. The so-called laws producing and governing sin 
and sickness are declared to be not of divine origin, else it 
were useless to try to destroy them along with sin and sickness. 

Christian Science declares that all evil is by nature evanes- 
cent and transitory; that the attempt to terrorize humanity 
with dark pictures and awful penalties has not lessened the 
hold of evil, but has given evil fictitious power. It affirms that 
the day has passed when suffering mankind can be won to God 
or driven into heaven by fear, and that to-day public opinion 
has come to recognize fear as the seed whence spring many 
noxious weeds. Sown in among good grain these weeds spoil 
the good crops. To attempt to rule by fear, or to influence 
others by fear, even for their good, is to sow destructive seed 
broadcast in human consciousness, where it must germinate 
and develop to its own destruction. 

To those who imagine themselves bereft of all hope of sal- 
vation here and now, with nothing in prospect but deliverance 
through death and the promise of good things to come here- 
after, Christian Science teachings offer the contrast of a wholly 
good God, who does not produce the incitements, nor the con- 
sequences of sin; who is available now, who saves now and 
who needs not to be placated, since His love towards us tran- 
scends our ability to comprehend it. 

175 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

Christian Science teaches mankind to place all phenomena 
in their proper perspectives, to put evil forces where they be- 
long and to stop attempting to father upon the divine Mind, 
the excesses, the furies and the violence of the carnal and 
fleshly mind, which its founder has aptly denominated mortal 
mind. 

V. 

The fundamental or basic propositions of Christian Science 
are declared to be as follows, viz: 

First. That God is Infinite Spirit, the All-in-All ; that He 
is Infinite mind and Infinite life, all powerful and omnipotent; 
that He is good. From this proposition the conclusions are 
drawn and are declared to be self evident, viz. : That, as God 
is Spirit and All-in-All, the material Universe — that which is 
revealed by the testimony of the physical senses — has no real 
existence or entity; that in Divine Science the real universe, 
including man, is spiritual, eternal and harmonious. 

Second. That God, being omnipresent Life and omnipotent 
Good, it necessarily follows that sin, evil, disease and death, 
being opposites, can have no real existence or entity. 

Third. That the admission of their actuality denies the all- 
ness of God, God's goodness and omnipotence. Evil, sin, 
disease and death consequently cannot have real entity. Being 
the very antipodes of God, they are necessarily comprised 
solely in human, material belief, and belong not to the divine 
Mind, and therefore are without a real origin or existence. 
The belief in evil is declared to be all the evil there is, and this 
belief, acting through or upon mortals and things procures all 
the phenomena of evil. 

Evil is declared to be a negative condition, wanting in all 
the real factors of a positive force. Being without power of 
persistence it becomes self-destroying when it seeks to resist 
progress. The theory of a force that is evil in purpose and 
ignorant in method, it is further affirmed, would make life 

176 



IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE THE ANTIDOTEf 

chaotic ; that between law and chaos, design and accident, there 
can be no middle ground. 

"Truth," insists the founder of Christian Science, "will be 
to us 'the resurrection and the life' only as it destroys all error 
and the belief that Mind, the only immortaHty of man, can be 
fettered by the body, and Life be controlled by death."^ God 
is declared to be the Principle of divine metaphysics; that as 
there is but one God, there can be but one divine Principle of 
all science, and that there must be fixed rules for the demon- 
stration of this divine Principle. 

Christian Science insists that as God is Spirit, man, the 
child of God, is spiritual. This does not mean that man as he 
appears is not very material to those who believe that material- 
ity is reality; nor does it mean that the spiritual man will be 
realized as the only man at the present time, and the nothing- 
ness of matter proved now as Jesus proved it. Disease, like 
materiality, does not exist in reality, but the lie of disease, like 
all lies, is very real until proved to be a lie ; then only can one 
know that it is not the truth and did not emanate from truth. 

The claim is made that Christian Science is inconsistent, 
because it heals disease that does not exist. If diseases do 
really exist and are God ordained, Christian Science cannot, 
nor can any science, cure it ; but the apparent disease is healed, 
and though this is generally understood, in common usage the 
word "apparent" is left out. Reality, to Christian Science is 
that which is eternal, never changing. All that is temporal, 
therefore, in this sense is unreal. It is the misconception of 
this distinction that causes much unthinking criticism of Chris- 
tian Science. 

Certain important statements in Christian Science have a 
direct and immediate bearing on the subject of disease and 
kindred forms of human wretchedness. In making these 
affirmations, Mary Baker Eddy threw down the gauge of battle 

^Science and Health, page 292. 

177 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

to the three sciences most inveterate in dogma and intrenched 
for centuries in the convictions of the human race. These 
conclusions are admirably summarized by Edward H. Kimball 
in an article in the Cosmopolitan Magazine: 

"To the medical scientist Mrs. Eddy declares that *God, 
the sole Creator of all that has actual, legitimate existence, 
has not created or procured disease and does not make use 
of it or cooperate v^^ith it for any purpose.' Sickness is an 
abnormality, wholly illegitimate, unlawful and unnecessary; it 
is not a natural, indispensable or irresistible incident of man's 
normal existence; and being at most but a disorder of human 
procurement, can be and will be exterminated." 

In this particular, she is absolutely in accord with the 
prophecy of Benjamin Franklin (in 1788) to the effect that the 
science of healing would be discovered and practised, and when 
practised would, by sure means, either prevent or cure all man- 
ner of diseases, through the power of Mind. 

"The demonstration of Jesus," Mrs. Eddy affirms, "instead 
of being works of mystery, were in attestation of the divinely 
scientific verity that the nature, power and law of God are 
adequately available to a sick man and are spontaneously re- 
sponsive to his need." 

To the scientific philosopher and metaphysician, Mrs. Eddy 
declares: that "the chief mischief maker of the world and 
the primitive cause or essence of disease is what Paul desig- 
nated the 'carnal mind' represented by the sum or aggregation 
of human fear, ignorance, superstition, sin and erroneous and 
perverted beliefs and illusions." She insists that "the one 
supreme potentiality of the universe is the divine Mind or 
Spirit, which has correctly been termed Omniscience" ; further- 
more, "that this mind which was also in Christ is equal to and 
is all that will ever eflfect the redemption of mortals from sin 
and sickness." 

Christian Science introduces a new view of Jesus' healing 

178 



IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE THE ANTIDOTE? 

which is declared to be wholly spiritual in its nature, method 
and design. It teaches that the cure of disease which Jesus 
accomplished was wrought through the divine Mind, which 
gives all true volition, impulse and action, thus destroying the 
mental error made manifest physically and establishing the 
opposite manifestations of truth upon the body in harmony 
and health. 

VI. 

Christian Science presents a complete structure of religious 
belief. The chief stones in this structure are declared to be 
found in the following postulates, viz. : 

"That life is God, good and not evil; that Soul is sinless, not 
to be found in the body ; that Spirit is not, and cannot be, mate- 
rialized ; that Life is not subject to death ; that the spiritual real 
man has no birth, no material life, and no death. "^ 

The twin pillars of the Christian Science structure are, first, 
the conception of God as All-in- All ; that God is what the 
Scriptures declare Him to be, Life, Truth and Love; that 
there is in reality one Mind only, because there is but one God. 
And second, the conception of man as made in God's image 
and likeness, even the infinite expression of infinite Mind, as 
existent and eternal with that mind.^ 

All substance, intelligence, wisdom, being, immortality, 
cause and effect. Christian Science ascribes to God. These are 
God's attributes; the eternal manifestations of the infinite 
divine Principle, Love. "No wisdom is wise but His wisdom. 
No truth is true, no love is lovely, no life is immortal but what 
God gives ; no good is good but the good He bestows."^ Divine 
metaphysics as propounded by Christian Science shows clearly 
that all is Mind and that Mind is God, omnipotent, omni- 

^Science and Health, page 288. 
^Science and Health, page 336. 
^Science and Health, page 275. 

179 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

presence, omniscient ; that is, all power, all presence, all science. 
Hence all is in reality the manifestation of Mind. 

Christian Science places God at the foundation of its whole 
structure ; it bases every argument upon Him and derives from 
Him its only strength and sustenance. It declares that God 
constitutes the foundation and principle of all true religion. 

God is declared to be Incorporal, Divine, Supreme, Infinite, 
Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love, the Everlast- 
ing, not bounded nor compressed within the narrow limits 
of physical humanity, nor understood aright through mortal 
concept. He is represented as declaring concerning His own 
nature and that of man : 

"I am Spirit. Man, whose senses are spiritual, is My like- 
ness. He reflects the infinite understanding, for I am Infinity. 
The beauty of holiness, the perfection of being, imperishable 
glory — all are Mine, for I am God. I give immortality to man, 
for I am Truth. I include and impart all bliss, for I am Love. 
I give life, without beginning and without end, for I am Life. 
I am supreme and give all, for I am Mind. I am the substance 
of all, because i am that i am.""^ 

If God is Spirit, as Christian Science maintains, then the 
real man of His creation, made in His image and likeness, and 
therefore partaking of His nature, must be spiritual, i. e., must 
express and manifest Spirit. The real man's life and faculties 
must therefore be spiritual. Furthermore, as the image and 
likeness of God, the real man must be complete, happy, whole- 
some and healthy. He cannot deny his parentage nor bring 
discredit upon his spiritual ancestry. He must be eternal and 
indestructible now, the ideal man, the son of God. This con- 
clusion derived from the word of God, is found to be at 
variance with the testimony of material sense. It does not 
agree with the experience of mortal man from the cradle to 

^Science and Health, page 252. 

180 



IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE THE ANTIDOTE? 

the grave; the experience of mortal man is one of sin, sickness 
and death, not of undimmed joy and eternal life. 

Here seems to be a discrepancy, and Christian Science pro- 
vides the necessary explanation by showing that mortal, mate- 
rial man, who is believed to be the sport of circumstances, the 
prey of discord and the victim of death, is not the real man of 
God's creation, declared in the Bible to be the image and like- 
ness of God. Christian Science teaches that mortal man is a 
false concept of the true man, a counterfeit attempting to re- 
semble the truth, but detected nevertheless because of his un- 
likeness to God. God is not the author of mortal, material 
man, nor of mortal man's failures, limitations, losses, final 
breakdown and death sentence. 

Says Clarence B. Eton, in the "Restoration of Primitive 
Christianity." "An unreserved acceptance of the inspired 
word naturally implies a firm belief in the divinity and the re- 
demptive mission of Christ, for Christian Science argues that 
there is no warrant, much less permission, for our taking from 
or adding to the purpose or plan of God. We recognize in 
Christ Jesus as the Son of God, the evidence of the perfect 
unity, or oneness of God and the real man. We declare that 
this unity or oneness was attested by the teaching and works 
which characterized Jesus' ministry and crowned with royal 
splendor the life of Him who 'spake as never man spake.' 
Christ Jesus as the recognized Saviour of men fulfilled the ca- 
pacity of Mediator and Redeemer in the splendid manner of 
His own life and example. But of incalculable value to us is 
the great and precious truth, which He by precept and ex- 
ample taught, namely, that God is not the avowed enemy of 
His own creation. Moreover, we believe that Christ Jesus 
effected a reconciliation by giving men a better and a truer con- 
cept of their relation to God, and not by conciliating the divine 
anger through His own ignominious death." 



181 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

VIL 

Christian Science brings the thought of harmony, the denial 
of disease and the affirmation that God is good and Hfe is 
beautiful; it insists that man is not under the law of limited 
opportunity, but that he is subject to the law of boundless and 
perpetual opportunity; that the only legitimate law is the law 
of supply and that man is entitled to and ought to receive 
a legitimate and ample maintenance. 

Christian Science inculcates a spirit of expectancy, which 
is the open door to welfare; it teaches that man is entitled to 
the fulness and ampleness of life, that for every condition of 
wrong thinking, which waylays and obstructs the human race, 
there is the positive condition of dominion, hope and power, 
which is an irresistible offset thereto. It reveals the actuality 
of Spirit, acquaints its adherents with God and eternal life; 
promises to every man a betterment of his immediate exist- 
ence on earth, and performs according to its promise. It does 
not invite anyone to die in order to be saved or to be happy. 
Its entire essence and import is in the way of expectation of 
Hfe, health, immortality and righteousness. 

Christian Science affirms that no legitimate limitation rests 
upon mankind ; none is competent to repress one's own nor- 
mal capacity; it teaches the majesty, sublimity and the possi- 
bilities of infinite Mind and that man should operate accord- 
ing to the law of divine Mind, for it is the supreme influence of 
this Mind in man that means health and life and boundless 
opportunity and recompense. It excludes discussion as to one's 
health because of the consequent implications which such dis- 
cussions involve. Thereby it does an untold amount of good, 
even if it does deprive society of one of its stock subjects of 
conversation. Christian Science teaches that images of dis- 
ease should not be allowed to take form in thought, and by 
the same token would rule out funeral processions from our 

182 



IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE THE ANT I DOT Ef 

streets, and the undertaker's name and address from the front 
of the church. 

Christian Science replaces darkness and gloom with the 
light of life; it eliminates worry and teaches men that God is 
really able to run His world and to govern His own ideas. It 
teaches us to rise above threatening conditions, to refuse to 
accept evil beforehand, to rise above the place where evil seems 
to rule, and by entering into the peace of the kingdom of heaven 
bring to pass in our lives the order and harmony of God's gov- 
ernment. It teaches us that discouragement has no place in 
good and that work which God sustains can involve no anxiety. 
It removes not only the sense of limitation but the sense that 
to-day's failure is final. In place of a sense of hmited oppor- 
tunity which hampers the spirit, it teaches that man reflects the 
divine and perfect activity, and that there is an inexhaustible 
source of life and action w^hich man is created to express, that 
when his doings are truly taken out of human sense and based 
in God, there is no fatigue and no need of recuperation physi- 
cally or mentally, since mental powers and capacities do not 
wear out by constant use, but on the contrary are strengthened 
through exercise. 

"Christian Science is dawning upon a material age. The 
great spiritual facts of being, like rays of light, shine in the 
darkness, though the darkness, comprehending them not, may 
deny their reality. The proof that the system stated in this 
book is Christianly scientific resides in the good this system 
accomplishes, for it cures on a divine, demonstrable Principle 

which all may understand Christian Science separates 

error from truth, and breathes through the sacred pages the 
spiritual sense of life, substance and intelligence. In this 
Science, we discover man in the image and likeness of God. 
We see that man has never lost his spiritual estate and his 
eternal harmony."^ 

^Science and Health, pages 546-548. 

183 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

Christian Science in its magnificent hopefulness may seem 
to offer that which is "too good to be true." But nothing is 
too good to be true. Things are true because they are good and 
good because they are true. An absolute conviction that there 
is an available power stronger than "all those that be against 
us," will lift the race out of hopelessness and helplessness. 
Christian Science is eliminating the word "impossible," for all 
things are possible to God, and God is always available. 

That Mary Baker Eddy should have ventured on such un- 
familiar ground and self-forgetful, should have gone on to 
establish this mighty system of metaphysical healing called 
Christian Science against such odds — even the entire current 
of mortality — is, as she has justly observed, "a matter of grave 
wonderment to profound thinkers," 

"In this new departure of metaphysics God is regarded 
more as absolute, supreme ; and Christ is clad with a richer 
illumination as our Saviour from sickness, sin and death. God's 
Fatherliness as Life, Truth and Love makes His sovereignty 
glorious. 

"By this system, too, man has a changed recognition of his 
relation to God. He is no longer obliged to sin, be sick and die 
to reach heaven, but is required and empowered to conquer sin, 
sickness and death ; thus, as image and likeness, to reflect Him 
who destroys death and hell. By this reflection, man becomes 
the partaker of that Mind whence sprang the universe. 

"In Christian Science, progress is demonstration, not doc- 
trine. This Science is ameliorative and regenerative, delivering 
mankind from all error through the light and love of Truth. 
It gives to the race loftier desires and new possibilities. It 
lays the axe at the root of the tree of knowledge, to cut down 
all that bringeth not forth good fruit; 'and blessed is he who- 
soever shall not be offended because of me.' It touches mind to 
more spiritual issues, systematizes action, gives a keener sense 
of Truth and a stronger desire for it. 

"Hungering and thirsting after a better Hfe, we shall have 
it, and become Christian Scientist ; learn God aright, and know 

184 



IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE THE ANTIDOTEf 

something of the ideal man, the real man, harmonious and 
eternal. This movement of thought must push on the ages : it 
must start the wheels of reason aright, educate the affections to 
higher resources, and leave Christianity unbiased by the super- 
stitions of a senior period."^ 

^Miscellaneous Writings, pages 234-235. 



185 



ITS HEALING MINISTRY. 

THAT great movements do not proceed from mean or in- 
sufficient causes is an accepted canon of history. Christian 
Science, without the aid of any worldly influence and in the 
face of the keenest opposition on the part of learning, wealth, 
wit and power, has achieved a phenomenal success which 
clearly indicates that some potent influence or agency beyond 
man's grasp or control must have been concerned in it. The re- 
markable growth of the movement and the successful ministry 
to the physical ills of mankind, cannot be interpreted other- 
wise than as affording an incontestable proof of the inherent 
truth of Christian Science principles and practice. 

This movement cannot be dismissed by the assertion that 
it is neither Christian nor scientific; or that until Christian 
Science submits its cures to the examination of men of science 
working with the so-called exact knowledge of the laboratory, 
the claim that it cures disease cannot be proved or disproved 
with the scientific accuracy which will satisfy the unbeliever. 
Assertions to the effect that Mrs. Eddy stole her ideas from 
Dr. Quimby, while pretending to be a "scribe echoing the har- 
monies of heaven in divine metaphysics" ; that she masqueraded 
as the author of a book which she did not compose ; that she 
was preternaturally cunning in exploiting a religious movement 
for greed and love of power ; that Christian Scientists are a 
lot of dupes and devotees, bewitched by a woman into believ- 
ing the rankest nonsense — these jibes and their ilk are not sim- 
ply puerile, they are nonsensical and valueless as affording any 
rational explanation of the growth of the Christian Science 

186 



ITS HEALING MINISTRY 

church and the cures which the Qiristian Science practitioners 
have effected. 

For ages humanity has pinned its faith to materia medica. 
Dependence upon drugs and the professional services of a doc- 
tor in case of illness is an ingrained habit of the human race; 
it has become second nature. The acceptance of a new and 
radically different method of healing, involving not only the 
relinquishment of all material forms of medical treatment, but 
a reliance upon spiritual agencies concerning which a material- 
istic age has a very imperfect comprehension, must necessaril} 
take time, and a good deal of it. Consequently, the patients 
treated in Christian Science have for the most part been those 
who have failed to find relief from the regular school of phy- 
sicians and who have turned to Christian Science as a dernier 
resort. 

When Jesus began His healing ministry, the first sermon 
He preached in His own town raised a riot and nearly cost 
Him His life. On the second occasion, it is recorded that His 
townspeople were offended because of the wisdom which He 
displayed and the healing works which He did, and from that 
time forward "He did not many mighty works there because 
of their unbelief." Jesus' healing ministry was hindered by His 
own people through lack of faith. Is it not a marvel how 
Christian Science practitioners have been able to effect the re- 
markable cures that have been made in Christian Science 
practice, in the face of bitter opposition and deep-rooted, preva- 
lent skepticism as to the efficacy of their healing methods? Is 
it not still more extraordinary that their percentage of cures 
under such conditions should be larger than popularly favored 
materia medica has been able to present ? 

Christian Science healing involves of necessity an educa- 
tional process. A body of practitioners must be raised up 
thoroughly indoctrinated in its principles and practice, and it 

187 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

takes an even longer time to convince the unbeliever that heal- 
ing by spiritual means is a practical and effective system of 
cure. 

In founding a pathological system of Christianity, the 
founder of Christian Science states that she has labored to 
expound divine metaphysics, not to exalt personality ; that she 
has remained unseen but patiently at her post, not seeking self- 
aggrandizement, but praying, watching, working and waiting 
for the redemption of humanity. Her teachings on healing are 
given at length in the chapters entitled "Christian Science 
Teaching" and "Christian Science Practice" in the Christian 
Science text-book. These chapters, taken in connection with 
the connate chapters on "Physiology" and "Science, Theology 
and Medicine," comprise one-third of the entire volume. They 
form the body of doctrine and instruction under which the 
healing ministry of the Christian Science church is conducted. 

"Christian Science," Mrs. Eddy declares, "brings to the 
body the sunlight of Truth, which invigorates and purifies. 
Christian Science acts as an alternative, neutralizing error with 
Truth. It changes the secretions, expels humors, dissolves 
tum.ors, relaxes rigid muscles, restores carious bones to sound- 
ness. The effect of this Science is to stir the human mind to 
a change of base, on which it may yield to the harmony of the 
divine Mind."^ 

"Working out the rules of Science in practice, the author 
has restored health in cases of both acute and chronic disease 
in their severest forms." Secretions have been changed, the 
structure has been renewed, shortened limbs have been elon- 
gated, joints have been made supple Christian Science 

heals organic disease as surely as it heals what is called func- 
tional, for it requires only a fuller understanding of the divine 
Principle of Christian Science to demonstrate the higher rule."^ 

A system of healing which professes to operate through 
the power of the divine Mind, demands by the very necessity 

^Science and Health, page 162. 
^Page 162. 

188 



ITS HEALING MINISTRY 

of the case, exalted purity and spirituality of character on the 
part of the practitioner. Success in reaching and removing 
the physical ailments of mankind by spiritual means in the 
midst of an age of materialism and dependence upon drugs and 
hygiene, call for qualities of mind and heart of the very high- 
est type. For this reason, therefore. Christian Science prac- 
titioners are required to cast moral evils out of themselves in 
order to attain spiritual freedom and thus to- reach the patient 
through divine power. They are warned against spiritual bar- 
renness, lack of godly affection and faith, which mark the 
inefficiency of stereotyped forms of prayer; they are enjoined 
to encourage the sick, to comfort the broken-hearted and to 
assure both patient and penitent of the unalterable love of God 
who alone heals all disease and cancels every sin when ap- 
proached in sincerity. They are taught to contradict com- 
plaints from the body, upon the basis of knowing that these 
neither originate in nor depend upon God, but result from dis- 
obedience to God's law, and that as the apprehension of the 
perfection of God's universe appears, all maladies must dis- 
appear in the same ratio. 

Ill 

Turning from its principles, let us inquire what have been 
the results of Christian Science practice during the forty odd 
years that have elapsed since Mary Baker Eddy began to teach 
metaphysical healing. As already noted, the Christian Science 
church now has a following variously estimated between 
1,500,000 to 2,000,000. It has been founding churches and so- 
cieties all over the globe at the rate of nearly two every week 
for the past decade or more. The movement has carried with 
it a successful ministry to the physical ills of mankind. It has 
a body of nearly 5,000 earnest, devoted Christian Science 
practitioners engaged in healing works in connection with these 

189 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

churches and societies. What the honestly sceptical public 
wants to know and has a right to know, is this : 

Have Christian Science practitioners been able to heal sick 
people by the Christian Science method of healing ? 

Have they been able to do so to such an extent as to demon- 
strate the fact that there is a scientific basis of healing such as 
taught by Mrs. Eddy? 

Has the efiicacy and reliability of this method of healing 
been proved to such an extent as to warrant general acceptance 
of Christian Science as a curative agency in the place of drugs 
and hygiene? 

These are questions of tremendous import to humanity. 
Every person on the face of the earth has a deep interest in 
the answers that shall be given to them. Furthermore, they 
are questions of fact, and can therefore be answered by a study 
of what Christian Science practitioners have accomphshed in 
the way of relieving the physical ills that afflict mankind. 

The facts relating to this matter given in the following 
pages are at best a brief and very incomplete resume. Such 
available data as the writer has been able to gather is very 
meagre as to the extent of the healing accomplished in the 
past thirty years. 

Mrs. Eddy inaugurated the Christian Science metaphysical 
healing movement with one student in 1867. She continued 
for many years thereafter teaching and demonstrating the heal- 
ing works which follow the application of her system. Her 
first copyright of Science and Health was taken out in 1870, 
but the revision of the first edition was not completed nor the 
book published until 1875, because Mrs. Eddy had realized that 
the science must be demonstrated by healing works before a 
volume on that subject could be confidently issued. In con- 
sequence, when she published her book she was able to pre- 
sent a number of personal testimonials of healing selected from 
thousands of letters, testifying to the healing efficacy of Chris- 

190 



ITS HEALING MINISTRY 

tian Science. These testimonials cover seventy-two instances 
of recovery from disease and include almost the whole range 
of physical ailments. The cures embraced both organic and 
functional diseases, among which are: 

Chronic diarrhoea of eight years' standing, sciatica, blood 
poisoning, rheumatic gout, inflammation of the lungs, hernia, 
bronchitis, cancer, catarrh, heart trouble, lameness, diseased 
lungs, nervous prostration, dyspepsia, astigmatism, chronic gas- 
tritis, dislocated hip, spinal disease, curvature of the spine, var- 
icose veined legs, anemia, fibrous tumor, nervous and bilious 
headaches, consumption, neuralgia, lumbago, feverish colds, 
heart disease, influenza, Bright's disease, inflammation of the 
eyes, eczema, epilepsy, chronic rheumatism, partial paralysis, 
chronic inflammation of the stomach, neuralgia, catarrh of the 
throat, periodical attacks of biliousness, severe sick headaches, 
hip disease. 

In Miscellaneous Writings, letters from many places are 
given, certifying to cures resulting from the reading and study 
of Science and Health. The editor of the Christian Science 
Journal holds the original of most of the letters that authenti- 
cate these cases of healing. The following is the range of 
cures: Dyspepsia, constipation, kidney trouble, endo-neu- 
tritis, bilious fever, prolapses etere, consumption, chronic liver 
complaint, neuralgia, catarrh, piles, nervous prostration, dys- 
entery, serious eye trouble, malignant cancer, cancer of the 
neuros, throat and stomach trouble, chronic hepatitis, mor- 
phine habit, inflammation of the bowels, astigmatism, hip joint 
disease, blindness. 

The practice of publishing instances of healing personally 
testified to, with name and address, begun with "Science and 
Health," has been continued in the Christian Science Journal, 
first issued in April, 1883, and in the Christian Science Sentinel, 
which first appeared in September, 1898. These testimonials 
afiFord a definite indication of the variety of cures effected by 

191 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

Christian Science practitioners. Up to the present time over 
ten thousand personal testimonies of heahng have been pub- 
lished. The truthfulness of these instances of cure have not 
been successfully disproved as trustworthy evidence, bearing on 
the subject of the healing work accomplished by the Christian 
Science practitioners. It is well within bounds to say that these 
cures thus testified to are less than one per cent of the cures 
now being performed annually. To-day, taking at random 
recent issues of the Christian Science Journal and the Christian 
Science Sentinel, we find twenty-three testimonials of healing 
in the Sentinel and thirteen in the Journal, as follows : 

In the Sentinel: Catarrhal affections of the stomach, as 
diagnosed by the physician; glasses dispensed with after eight 
years' use; cure of an attack from a case of poison; recovery 
from drunkenness, cigarette and profanity habit; chronic 
stomach and bowel trouble ; lung trouble and organic disease of 
the jaw-bone; kidney trouble; eye trouble; stomach trouble 
and internal complications; sleeplessness, eye trouble, head- 
ache, and bowel trouble; female trouble nine years' standing, 
and unconscious spells which specialists pronounced incurable. 

In the Journal: Leg trouble, 32 inches diseased veins re- 
moved, surgeons and physicians declared that medicine could 
not reach the case, and that the knife had done all it could do, 
short of taking off the leg; healed in Christian Science and 
physically free for the first time in forty-four years. 

Case of a gentleman eight-six years old, ill from serious 
lung trouble, had two doctors and two trained nurses, uncon- 
scious most of the time, for two days used oxygen as a stimu- 
lant, recovered under Christian Science treatment; asthmatic 
trouble with which he had long suffered disappeared with cure. 

Cure of the use of morphine and alcoholic stimulants to 
which he had been accustomed for twenty-seven years ; also to- 
bacco habit of nearly forty years. Patient addicted to the use 
of morphine stimulant. 

Suffering from stomach trouble, large lump on left breast ; 
her son also a sufferer from serious throat trouble and mumps. 

Rheumatic trouble and terrible cramping in the legs; com- 
plication of diseases set in, including dropsical condition, and 

192 



ITS HEALING MINISTRY 

diseased condition of the kidneys ; lay helpless for months ; tap- 
ping afforded no relief and physicians expressed no hope of 
relief. Cured in Christian Science. 

Case of broken health; case pronounced helpless. Change 
of climate advised; asthmatic trouble of twenty years' stand- 
ing; heart trouble said to be organic, with worrying disposi- 
tion. Cured in Christian Science. 

Fall and injury to back and spinal trouble, and stomach 
trouble; all sorts of remedies and treatment advised; followed 
medical prescriptions faithfully for years, but became more 
emaciated; was carried to a Christian Science service. Cured 
in Christian Science. 

Case of heart trouble; treated by many physicians without 
results. Carried left arm in splints for eleven weeks, owing to 
injury to the shoulder which made it impossible to raise the 
arm and which had become crooked. Doctor said would never 
become straight. 

Injury to the spine by being thrown from a carriage. Suf- 
fered for fifteen years with pain in the head and back. Never 
knew what it was to have a well day. Was taken ill with 
fever and reduced in weight to eighty-seven pounds and under- 
went surgical treatment in the Maine General Hospital. Cured 
in Christian Science. 

Had liquor, tobacco and profanity habit; weak constitu- 
tion. Cured in Christian Science. Weak constitution made 
strong ; weight increased forty pounds ; freedom from worries 
and perplexities and increase in income. Asthma and affec- 
tion of the lungs. 

Invalid with throat and lung trouble. Various treatments 
resorted to from both schools of medicine; went hither and 
thither sampling air; medicine, change of air and diet could 
give no permanent relief. Cured in Christian Science. 

The statistics of the work of the Christian Science prac- 
titioners is not available for the entire field, but the Christian 
Science publication committee for the state of New York has 
furnished certain data for an article in a recent issue of the 
Broadway Magazine. According to the figures given, 13,876 
cases were treated in New York state between September, 
1905, and September, 1906. Of this number 11,244 were either 

193 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 



completely cured or permanently benefited, and of these 1,495 
cases were taken over from physicians who had given them up 
or despaired of affording relief. The number of deaths was 
58. The 2,632 cases remaining were at the time still under 
treatment. These statements are on file and accessible at the 
office of the Christian Science Committee on Publication, lo- 
cated at No. I Madison Avenue, New York City, and can be 
easily verified. 

The common impression with a majority of people is that 
Christian Science may possibly be of value in cases of hysteria 
and forms of functional nervous diseases. The array of tes- 
timony presented by these statistics as to the variety of un- 
questionable cures effected is remarkable, as the following 
partial tabulation will show : 

Rheumatism 17 cases 

Heart disease 7 

Tuberculosis — throat and lung trouble. .16 

Alcoholism and drug habit 6 

Stomach trouble 33 

Rupture 5 

Sprain and broken bones 4 

Female disease 26 

Nervous prostration 22 

Eye diseases ' 23 

Neuralgia 5 

Skin diseases, scrofula, etc 6 

Tumors and hemorrhoids 10 

Appendicitis — peritonitis, etc 7 

Bright's disease 5 

Locomotor Ataxia 4 

Cancer 6 

During the period covered by this record, the State De- 
partment of Health reported 129,833 cases as having died 
under medical treatment, making a rate of 17.3 to the thou- 
sand of population. The mortality among Christian Science 
patients is 3.82 to the thousand of the number treated. It 

194 



ITS HEALING MINISTRY 

must be borne in mind that the Christian Science population, 
as cited, was technically a hospital population. Every unit was 
a sick person, and in nearly every case of death the patient was 
already despaired of when Christian Science treatment began. 

The Christian Science Journal of February, 1906, gives the 
name and address of 303 practitioners for the state of New 
York. This establishes an average of 45.8 cases for each prac- 
titioner for the period under consideration. The Christian 
Science Journal of March, 1909, gives the names and addresses 
of 4,008 Christian Science practitioners in this country and 
abroad. Taking the average of 45.8 cases for each practition- 
er, the total number treated annually would be 188,156. Of the 
13,876 cases treated in New York state, 11,244 were completely 
cured or permanently benefited by Christian Science, giving an 
average of 37 successful cases for each practitioner, or a total 
number of cures effected by Christian Science practitioners of 
151,996 per annum. 

In all of the more than one thousand organizations of this 
denomination, weekly experience meetings are held, where at 
a very low estimate from seven to ten testimonies are heard at 
each session of cases which cover every known disease of body 
and mind, chronic and acute, organic and functional. One can 
readily see what a volume of evidence as to the curative efficacy 
of Christian Science is thus all the time accumulating. 

In an article by John B. Willis, in the Arena of July, 1907, 
on the Truths of Christian Science, there occurs a passage 
which connects itself closely with the foregoing resume of the 
healing ministry of Christian Science. 

"To the earnest truth-seeker the evidence is overwhelming 
that those who through pain or heart hunger are impelled to 
study Christian Science find in it great illumination, spiritual 
stimulus, freedom and joy. Christian Science has effected the 
healing and redemption of thousands in every walk of life. 
Every issue of its publications includes pages of testimonies 
which have been carefully verified, and the weight of this evi- 

195 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

dence is cumulative and convincing. Men and women are 
everywhere witnessing that it has brought them surcease of 
pain, the healing of all kinds of functional and organic disease, 
and a new, inspiring sense of the Divine nearness, love and 
power; that it has opened the Scriptures and led to their daily 
study as never before ; that it has enabled them to live a nobler 
and purer life, to love God and their fellowmen more truly, to 
overcome life's ills, and to bear those not escaped with less 
irritation and complaint — in a word, that it has brought them 
the fulfilment of their prayers and the prayers of Christian 
people in all the years, and the many beautiful temples dedi- 
cated to this new-old religion are simply thank offerings from 
those who have been thus benefited." 

On the subject of the lost healing power of Christianity and 
the spiritual mission of the Christian Science church, Mary 
Baker Eddy wrote in earlier years as follows : 

"The ancient Christians were healers. Why has this ele- 
ment of Christianity been lost? Because our systems of re- 
ligion are governed more or less by our systems of medicine. 
The first idolatry was faith in matter. The schools have ren- 
dered faith in drugs the fashion rather than faith in Deity. By 
trusting matter to destroy its own discord, health and harmony 
have been sacrificed. Such systems are barren of the vitality 
of spiritual power, by which material sense is made the servant 
of Science and religion become Christlike. 

"Material medicine substitutes drugs for the power of God 
— even the might of Mind — to heal the body. Scholasticism 
clings to the person, instead of the divine Principle, of the man 
Jesus ; and His Science, the curative agent of God, is silenced. 
Why? Because truth divests material works of their imaginary 
power, and clothes Spirit with supremacy. Science is the 
'stranger that is within thy gates,' remembered not, even when 
its elevating effects prove its divine origin and efficacy."^ 

Is it true that Christian Science is still the stranger within 
our gates? Rather is it not finding welcome in thousands of 
homes? Is it not driving faith in materia medica and the med- 
icine closet that goes with it out of multitudes of homes? Is it 
^Science and Health, page 146. 

196 



ITS HEALING MINISTRY 

not bringing in a condition of health and serenity of mind and 
countless blessings which were not there before? 

The healing power developed by Christian Science seems 
inexplicable to many because they do not understand that the 
controlling factor in our health processes is not body but Spirit. 
They are ready to acknowledge the existence of mortal mind, 
but adhere to the old conception that this mind resides in mat- 
ter, that it is the product of the brain cells. 

We are wiser now than we were forty years ago. Modern 
science no longer seeks to account for man's existence on this 
planet by attributing his origin to dead a^oic matter or to life- 
less particles or molecules of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, etc., 
combined in a protoplasmic cell. The notion that intelligence, 
sensation and substance are inherent in matter or the inert par- 
ticles which man appropriates for the construction or mainte- 
nance of his physical organization and that man is simply the 
outcome of certain physico-chemical properties of matter is 
being relegated to the scrap-heap of exploded conjectures or 
hypotheses. 

"All the apparent changes of the body," says Evans, the 
great philosopher, "all the conditions and qualities are within 

the mind and are only modes of thinking and feeling 

The body, with all its varying states of health and disease, 
pleasure and pain, strength and weakness, is only the extemal- 
ization, or ultimation, or projection outward, in appearance to 
ourselves of our inward condition." 

The German philosopher Fichte has stated very clearly the 

same view with regard to the human body : 

"I am compelled to admit," says he, "that this body, with 
all its organs, is nothing but a sensible manifestation in a de- 
terminate portion of space — of myself — the inward thinking 
being or spiritual entity." 

It is becoming far less difficult for thinking minds to accept 
the basic truth which Christian Science so insistently teaches, 

197 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

that man is the idea of Infinite Mind ; that the body is an ex- 
pression of Mind and reflects harmony or discord according 
to thought. Is not the world many leagues on its way toward 
the solution of the question propounded by Mary Baker Eddy 
in 1885? 

"Shall we have a spiritual Christianity and a spiritual heal- 
ing or a materialistic religion and a materia medica ?" 

How judge ye, Members of the Jury? 



19a 



III. 

SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT OF BEING. 

THE order of progression in science has been marked by two 
great epochs. The epoch of Copernicus destroyed the il- 
lusions of material sense concerning the motions of the solar 
system, but Copernicus could not tell what it was that held the 
earth in its orbit. Kepler, eighty years after, inferred that the 
laws which preside over the grand movements of the solar sys- 
tem preside also over the lesser movements of its constituent 
parts, and strongly protested against the action of the Roman 
church authorities in prohibiting the promulgation of "the true 
system of the structure of the universe." The laws of the 
planetary revolutions were signally illustrated by these two 
great scientists, but the promulgation of the formula of motion, 
the theory of the law of gravitation, was the epoch of Newton 
in European science. Nevertheless, to think or speak of gravi- 
tation as a law of matter is incongruous, since every quality of 
matter in and of itself is inert, inanimate, non-intelligent. It is 
neither self-creative nor self-existent. Wherever law is there 
must of necessity be an intelligent, all-powerful, self-existent 
Law-Giver back of it. 

The epoch of Newton was the answer to Copernicus. It 
gave science the law of gravitation which governs the move- 
ments of the heavenly bodies. But science could give no ex- 
planation of what is back of this so-called law of gravitation, 
whereby the systems upon systems of the stellar universe are 
held to their appointed courses, other than to call it "bUnd 
force" or energy, or the operation of natural or ''eternal laws 
of iron." 

199 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

We have had the epoch of Copernicus; we have had the 
epoch of Newton. Great scientists were they, whose researches 
have led us to the borderland where lie the ultimate realities. 
We have reached another epoch in the progress of science to- 
wards the goal of knowledge of the real truth about things. 
The greatest scientist of our times has entered the borderland 
of which Sir William Crookes has spoken and has grappled 
with the "ultimate realities." The epoch of these latter days is 
the epoch of Christian Science, the epoch of a science that 
is not only scientific but Christian, a science that deals not with 
visible phenomena, but the creative Principle of all that has 
real being. 

Cicero declared his belief in an eternal and immutable law 
embracing all things and all times. D'Alembert, in his intro- 
duction to the Encyclopedia, echoes the same idea in these 
words : "The universe is but a single fact ; it is only one great 
truth." The cause of all phenomena, the power which is back 
of gravitation, Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian 
Science, has traced to its true source. She has broken through 
time-honored materialistic theories and traditions of botjh 
science and theology and dealt a fatal blow at the supposed 
material foundations or material concepts of life and intelli- 
gence in matter. With rare spiritual and philosophic insight 
she has postulated a statement of real being which is both 
Christian and scientific, and not less revolutionary and epoch- 
making than the discoveries of Copernicus or Kepler or New- 
ton; nor is it less radical in its overturning of the traditional 
illusion that matter has reality or substance or the attributes of 
life, intelligence or sensation. "This scientific sense of being 
estabHshes harmony ; it enters into no compromise with finite- 
ness and feebleness. It undermines the foundations of mor- 
taHty and of physical law, breaks their chains and sets the 
captive free; it opens the doors for them that are bound."* 

^Miscellaneous Writings, page loi. 

200 



SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT OF BEING 

In the face of a rampant materialism she has had the cour- 
age to challenge its doctrines with a scientific formulation of 
the verities — the ultimate realities — ^^the far-reaching effects of 
which have, as yet, been' scarcely realized by materialist or 
scientist 'or theologian. This scientific statement of truth re- 
verses completely the seeming relation between soul and body ; 
it emphasizes in a most signal manner the great truth that the 
universe is but a single fact, that it is itself one divine verity, 
subject to one eternal and immutable law, the law of the divine 
Mind. 

It is a marvel of terse, compact, scientific formulation, 
which goes direct to the heart of things in this old world of 
curs, and, what is more, it is not materialistic, but thoroughly 
Christian. It is a thesis which should be nailed to the door- 
posts of every orthodox church in Christendom. Hear ye : 

"There is no life, truth, intelligence nor substance in mat- 
ter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God 
is All-in- All. Spirit is immortal Truth. Matter is mortal error. 
Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and tem- 
poral. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness ; hence, 
man is spiritual and not material.^ 

This scientific statement of Being formulated by Mary 
Baker Eddy is the basis of a true science in that it is demon- 
strable. It is a truth "that works" ; that is known by the fruits 
thereof. It separates truth from error, and bases it not upon 
human speculation, but upon the verities of being. I regard it 
as the most wonderful, the most authoritative, scientific pro- 
nouncement in the history of the ages. It questions and con- 
tradicts the very premises of materialistic science and wrecks 
its first principles. It is more revolutionary, more far-reaching 
in its results, than the discoveries of both Copernicus and 
Newton, which have only led up to it. It is so from the very 
fact that it touches those ultimate realities concerning God and 

* Science and Health, page 468. 

201 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

man and the universe which science has been vainly groping 
for centuries to find. It has been reserved for a woman of 
profound spiritual insight, supreme virtue and intellectual 
acumen to point the way to the underlying truth about things 
in a declaration that is Christianly scientific and from which its 
every teaching, however revolutionary, follows as a logical de- 
duction from this fundamental principle. 

It is now nearly forty years since the founder of Christian 
Science presented its postulates or system of doctrine, which it 
claimed could be verified and made practical to this age in an 
exact, positive and demonstrable Christianity. Its basic truth 
is that God is Spirit and God is Mind, that He created all and 
that therefore it follows that the real creation is spiritual not 
material. God's spiritual creation is declared to be complete 
and perfect and includes all created things. The infinite God, 
which is readily acknowledged by the theologian, indicates that 
He is all, and that there is naught beside Him. God being 
Spirit, He is the only substance, the only entity. From this 
premise Christian Science relegates to the rank of unreality all 
that is unlike God and all that is unlike good. Mind as used 
in Christian Science is a synonym of God and does not mean 
the so-called human mind. 

"Science understood, translates matter into Mind; rejects 
all the theories of causation, restores the spiritual and original 
meaning of the Scriptures and explains the teachings and the 
life of our Lord. It is the 'new tongue' with 'signs following,' 
spoken of by St. Mark. It gives God's infinite meanings to 
mankind, healing the sick, casting out evil and raising the 
spiritually dead. Christianity is Christlike only as it reiterates 
the word, repeats the works and manifests the spirit of 
Christ."! 

But it is said that this Scientific Statement of Being flatly 
contradicts the evidence of the senses — the teachings of nat- 

^Miscellaneous Writings, page 25. 

202 



SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT OF BEING 

ural science and scholastic theology. Quite true; but not 
more so than the discovery which Copernicus announced and 
which flatly contradicts the evidence of our own eyesight. Do 
you believe what Mary Baker Eddy has said? Not less so, 
possibly, than I did when I first began to study the subject and 
formulate the material for this book. 

Can we ever be certain as to what our five senses testify 
to; do they, can they, testify truly? You are sure, for in- 
stance, that there is such a law as the law of gravitation, but 
you can neither see, taste, touch, nor feel it. It is an ideal- 
istic force or so-called law of motion, a term invented to ac- 
count for certain phenomena in nature. The real cause for 
that phenomena may be altogether different from what New- 
ton thought it was. We see an apple drop to the ground, but 
our physical senses cannot tell us what caused it to drop or 
what holds it fast to the ground or lets go of it when some boy 
comes along with vegetarian instincts and converts it to his 
sole use and purposes. Nor can you tell just how it is that an 
apple can subserve two such divergent functions, viz. : satisfy 
a boy's thievish proclivities and nourish his body at one and 
the same time. 

We are surrounded with forces acting upon us every mo- 
ment of our lives, but they are invisible; withdraw them and 
nature would collapse. Our corporeal senses can give us no 
reliable testimony about them, nor tell us anything of their 
real essence or nature. It is no new thing for the world to be- 
lieve in idealistic forces of the real nature of which it knows 
nothing. It has been doing so for ages past. It can only judge 
of the existence, or supposed existence, of these idealistic 
forces from certain effects commonly attributed to them. But 
when you approach the materialist, who has been accustomed 
"from his youth up" to pin his faith to these invisible, so- 
called forces — or laws of nature — and who continually trusts 
his Hie to them, and you ask him to believe in the existence of 

203 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

a Supreme Intelligence, a divine Energy, the great. first Cause 
and Creator, the infinite Mind which is God, who maintains 
the harmony of the spheres and is the ultimate reality back of 
all physical phenomena, you will probably get some such in- 
consequential and inane reply as this : "How can I believe any- 
thing I do not know for myself?" If he applied this principle 
in his daily life I know of no circle of activity where he would 
be anything but a dismal failure, and a fit subject for the lunatic 
asylum. If there were enough other people of the same way 
of thinking, it would put a stop to business and bankrupt 
society. 

Do you seriously doubt the truth of the formulations con- 
tained in the Scientific Statement of Being, which Mary Baker 
Eddy has given to the world ? The supreme test, on the basis 
of which Jesus Christ asked an unbelieving generation to ac- 
cept His claim as the Messiah, is the supreme test of Truth 
in all ages. "Believe for the very work's sake." And the 
pragmatic test for this age is akin to it concerning any for- 
mulation of truth. It is a test based on these questions: "Is 
the truth a demonstrable one?" «"Does it work?" "Is it some- 
thing which can be known by its fruits?" "Is it attended with 
results that can be expressed in terms of practical experience ?" 
Materia medica applies the very same tests to the various drug 
remedies offered for its use. The doctor asks at once "do 
they work?" "Will they effect cures?" And it is upon that 
basis that they are either accepted or thrown out of its phar- 
macopoeia. 

Christian Science is not propounded simply as a philoso- 
phical or metaphysical doctrine, the product of the study. 
This scientific statement of Being to which I have referred is 
an underlying tenet of the Christian Science church, a church 
which in the last twenty years has gained a foothold in nearly 
every part of the world and it has girdled the world with its 
churches and societies. In all the meetings held in these 

204 



SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT OF BEING 

churches or by these societies this scientific statement of Being 
is repeated each Sunday, once at the close of the morning 
service and again at the close of the evening service. It is the 
epoch-making event of the nineteenth century. It bases the 
faith and practice of a religious denomination which is actually 
succeeding in restoring primitive Christianity and its lost ele- 
ment of spiritual healing to this age, and is fast making a new 
history for the human race. 

The blind man who testified to his healing by unorthodox 
methods, practised by an outsider, was thrown out of the syna- 
gogue by the Scribes and Pharisees of his time. In this age 
orthodoxy has improved on the practice of these religionists of 
the Jewish church. It does not cast out of its sacred precincts 
those Christian Scientists who believe in Mrs. Eddy's formula- 
tions of truth and who have been healed by the power of that 
truth ; it refuses them letters of dismissal. 

When you realize the blessings to both, body and spirit 
which the Truth brings that Mrs. Eddy has given to this age 
through suffering untold and during years of unwearied toil 
and sacrifice; when you find that it actually does mean free- 
dom to the spirit and healing to the frame; that it frees you 
from false beliefs, from bondage to so-called material laws and 
the mesmerism of disease that have held you as with fetters 
of iron to sin, sickness and mortality, burdens, which, like the 
old man of the sea, the race has carried on its back for ages 
past ; when you find deliverance from that which has hampered 
the free exercise of your faculties, clogged your body's powers 
and prevented the full and normal action of both body and 
mind and crowded hope and cheer and happiness out of your 
life ; when this truth has made its demonstration in your own 
life, you will — well — you cannot do less than to hold in grateful 
memory the dear woman who was faithful to her trust in storm 
and stress, that she might give that Truth to you, and you 
needn't feel at all lonesome because of this, nor in a class by 

205 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

yourself. There is a couple of million people, and their num- 
ber is constantly increasing, that have come to know this truth 
and to feel the same way that you do towards the founder of 
Christian Science. And it is safe to say that three-fourths of 
them had in their own lives an experience of the healing power 
of Christian Science, quite as real and helpful as your own. 



We wonder, sometimes, why it is that the Christian Science 
Church is such a power in the land for good; why it displays 
so much spiritual vitality ; why, without the aid of those exter- 
nal forms and ceremonies which men are wont to think essen- 
tial to a well ordered religious life; why, without preacher or 
choir, or those sensuous sanctities and sacraments which eccle- 
siasticism provides its followers, the Christian Science services 
are so largely attended. What is it that crowds its churches 
and holds the people in such a bond of unity? What are the 
surface indications? — the reading of a few extracts from the 
Bible accompanied with selections from the Christian Science 
Text-book: — is that all? 

What is it that crowds the Wednesday night testimony 
meetings, and fills its services with testimonies of healing? 
Why is Christian Science enabled to carry on such a successful 
ministry to the spiritual and physical needs of the people, 
analagous to that which characterized the early Christian 
church, so that "from the snows of Alaska to the Australian 
scrub and from the Pagodas of China to the South African 
veldt" it is binding Christian Science round the hemispheres 
and carrying the story of Christian Science healing to the ends 
of the earth. How is it that this movement, so devoid of all 
the means which are regarded as essential to the undertaking 
of a successful crusade, and from which there has been so 
remarkable an elimination of personality, should nevertheless 
spread all over the globe? 

Is it because Christian Science so emphatically exahs the 

206 



SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT OF BEING 

spiritual man, — the ideal man, made in the image and likeness 
of God, — and the Truth which Jesus declared "would make men 
free" ? Is it because it not only teaches but demonstrates that 
His mighty works were based on the operations of divine 
Principle, before which sin and disease lose their reality in 
human consciousness and so disappear as naturally and as 
necessarily as darkness gives place to light and sin to reforma- 
tion? Is it because it teaches and demonstrates that these 
works are not supernatural but supremely natural, that they 
are the sign of Immanuel or "God with Us" — a divine influence 
ever present in human consciousness, coming now again as 
was promised aforetime "to bring deliverance to the captives, 
the recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that 
are bruised." 

The apostles when they went forth to conquer the world 
for God showed their credentials, and they were the same cre- 
dentials, the same works, which Jesus claimed were confirma- 
tory of His mission. Christian Science is showing the same 
credentials which the apostles presented to an unbelieving age. 
It is doing so in an age no less sceptical and antagonistic and 
its growth is no less remarkable and rapid than that of the 
early Christian church. 

There must be an adequate cause for every effect. How 
else can we account for the wonderful growth of the Christian 
Science movement? On what other grounds are we to attrib- 
ute its remarkable vitality and phenomenal extension to all 
lands. Is it because, as an astute editorial writer on one of our 
dailies remarked the other day, "Christian Science teachings are 
dangerous to the welfare of society," because "it is a survival 
of superstition in an enlightened age," and flourishes for the 
reason that "civilization and education are not yet supreme in 
the world." 

Is this to be taken as a rational or self-sufficing explanation 
of why Christian Scientists are sustained by such an invincible, 

207 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

living faith and exhibit such a superb serenity in the face of 
abuse and persecution? Does it furnish a conclusive answer 
to the question : "Why has Christian Science appealed so con- 
vincingly to a million or more of intelligent men and- women in 
a most critical and searching age ; why has the movement made 
such tremendous strides not only in this but foreign countries ?" 

Rather is it not indicative of a fatuous inability on the 
part of this watch-tower observer of the "signs of the times" to 
catch the significance of the teachings of Qiristian Science? 
Is not the need of a surgical operation, in medical parlance, 
"clearly indicated" — in view of such an obvious failure to per- 
ceive or appreciate the underlying causes or basic principles 
and tendencies which have made Christian Science What it is, 
in spite of a most persistent, tireless and many-sided opposition 
and antagonism on the part of Organized Medicine, Dogmatic 
Theology, Ecclesiasticism and materialistic science and phi- 
losophy as well, to say nothing of a flood of sectarian vitupera- 
tion which would have swept away any movement less firmly 
rooted in truth ? 

What say you, Members of the Jury ? 



208 



III. 

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE: DOES IT CONFLICT WITH 
THE BIBLE? 

L 

THERE are those who say that Christian Science contra- 
dicts the Bible. This contradiction has been insisted 
upon by the orthodox churches, and they have consequently 
declined to extend to the Science churches the right hand of 
fellowship. 

A charge of this kind naturally raises the question: "Is 
there any authoritative or accepted standard of scriptural 
interpretation by means of which the orthodoxy or heterodoxy 
of any given sect claiming to be Christian may be determined?" 
Christianity, unfortunately, is divided into more than 200 dif- 
ferent denominations or sects, all more or less hopelessly at 
variance on doctrinal points or forms of worship. In New 
York City, for instance, there are sixty-five Christian de- 
nominations which accept the teachings of the Bible and yet 
are in disagreement as to polity, theology or ritual, and until 
recently have denied their neighbor a right to the name of 
Christian. 

Many of the dogmas, traditions and theological creeds, and 
time honored systems of scholastic theology for which Biblical 
sanction is claimed, no longer command the approval of mod- 
ern schools of thought. To anyone who knows the currents 
of thought which have been working during our century and 
which are working still more powerfully, it must be evident 
as Prof. Chas. A. Briggs has observed, "that in a few years 

209 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

not a single Protestant confession of faith or catechism will 
retain binding authority in any denomination." 

Orthodox theologians continue to hold tenaciously to the 
dogma of post mortem rewards and punishments, as a basic 
principle in doctrine, and employ the hope of reward and the 
fear of punishment as an incentive or restraint, but the fact is, 
hell has no place in either the Old or the New Testament, as 
we have already shown in the chapter on theological formulas. 
Organized Christianity clings as determinedly to its belief in 
the reality of evil as something to train character and to be 
finally transmuted into good. It believes in the existence of a 
personal devil, who has been busy ever since creation success- 
fully thwarting the purposes of a beneficient Creator bent upon 
restoring humanity to its original state of virtue and happiness. 
"The whole Christian superstructure," says a recent religious 
writer, "is built upon the belief in a definite evil being. 
Destroy the Devil and we at once destroy all reason for man's 
present deplorable condition." 

The doctrine of the reality of evil as a personified evil 
power, may be a foundation support for the superstructure 
of organized Christianity as it exists to-day, but Jesus Christ 
did not warrant such teaching, nor did He make it an essential 
element of that kingdom of heaven on earth which He came 
to set up. He overthrew the supposition that the devil (evil) 
has power, by proving its powerlessness, in the saving of the 
sinful, the healing of the sick and the raising of the dead. 
His demonstrations excelled the influence of the dead faiths 
and ceremonies of the priests of His time, even as the healing 
power of the Gospel brought to this age by Christian Science 
excels in like manner the outlived faiths and dogmas of organ- 
ized Christianity and puts the priesthood to an open shame. 

The question of the origin of evil, since Jesus said that evil 
(the devil) "hath no truth in him" and hence that evil has no 
real existence, entity or power, may be fittingly relegated, as 

210 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE 

a. recent writer has suggested, to the consideration of such sage 
schoolmen as in the past were wont to discuss the question of 
the total number of devils that at the same instant could dis- 
port themselves upon a needle's point. 

On the subject of eternal punishment orthodox Christian- 
ity is quite as unscriptural as in its doctrine of a devil who 
populates hell with human beings. Jesus Christ set forth His 
mission and the essence of Christianity in the first reported 
sermon that He preached. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, 
because He hath annointed me to preach the gospel to the 
poor; He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach 
deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the 
blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised." There is no 
hint or suggestion here of the doctrine of an endless hell for 
the unreclaimed heathen. Nevertheless, the American Board 
of Missions deliberately excludes from its Foreign service all 
missionaries who do not believe in the eternal damnation of 
pagans ignorant of Christ, and all missionaries not ready to tell 
pagan audiences that their religion is a damnable error and 
that for entertaining it their ancestry has been doomed to per- 
dition. As Lyman Abbott well observes, "this doctrine is as 
repugnant to Scripture as it is to sound philosophy and human 
sentiment." 

It is possible for a great clerical or sacerdotal organiza- 
tion to present the most perfectly organized and administrative 
ecclesiasticism and yet to effectually exclude the living Spirit 
of God. We may well ask, "how does all this accentuation of 
church polity, theology and ritual, compare with the spirit of 
Christ? "The answer to this question," says Dr. Abbott, "is 
perfectly plain — not at all." 

"H His church," as Dr. Fairbairn has pertinently observed, 
"had conformed to His ideal, had followed His method in His 
spirit, who could tell what man would have to-day? All we 
can say is, the vision of the seer of Patmos, who saw the King- 

211 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

doms of the world become the kingdom of our God and of His 
Christ, would have been infinitely nearer fulfilment than it is." 



II. 

As a preliminary to passing judgment on Christian Science, 
it seems to me as a lay observer, that the churches which com- 
pose organized Christianity ought first to make up their dif- 
ferences on doctrinal points. Not only should they agree 
among themselves as to what the Bible teaches, and as to what 
are the essentials of the Christian religion by which conformity 
may be measured; they should square themselves with the 
teachings of Jesus Christ on the subject of healing. Healing 
is, or should be, quite as much a part of their mission as 
preaching; in fact, no orthodoxy can claim to be Christian 
which denies the healing power of the Truth which Jesus 
proclaimed and illustrated in His healing ministry. 

But if the orthodox expounders of Scripture are in hope- 
less disagreement among themselves as to what the Bible 
teaches ; tJiey are quite as hopelessly at sea as to what Christian 
Science teaches. Scarcely any two of them agree in their con- 
clusions. In fact, most of them openly and frankly admit that 
they have not studied or else do not understand Science and 
Health; others, for the most part, form their judgments from 
what someone else has said about it. But what they lack in 
understanding of Christian Science they counterbalance in 
abuse of its founder. 

Take for instance, the two divines who succeeded to Beech- 
er's pulpit in Plymouth Church. One of them has pictured 
Mrs. Eddy as Delilah luring people into a fancied security that 
she may the better accomplish their overthrow. You can run 
across this statement if you care to search the files of The 
Outlook. Fancy Mrs. Eddy shearing the long-haired and 
mighty intellectuals of the orthodox hosl> that she might de- 

212 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE 

liver them over to the PhiHstines of this materiaHstic age, to 
grind in the prison house or to make sport in the temple of 
Mammon, their God. With apologies to Louis Mann, "It is to 
laugh." The distinguished divine has unwittingly made a dis- 
tinct contribution to the gaiety of nations. 

His successor preached a sermon against Christian Science 
soon after the Plymouth Church episode, when the Christian 
Science authorities gracefully relinquished the church after 
hiring it from the trustees. This they did in deference to the 
feelings of the pastor and some of the congregation and in 
the interest of Christian harmony. In that sermon the noted 
divine confessed his inability to understand Christian Science 
teachings ; nevertheless, he proceeded to characterize Science 
and Health as "intellectual mush," as a sort of metaphysical 
"fly paper to catch unwary souls." Not much in the way of 
coherent argument against Christian Science in this — is there 
for our Jury to consider? 

Another prominent divine, occupying a Fifth Avenue de- 
nominational fortress and permeated by a somewhat similar 
idea, called Mrs. Eddy a metaphysical witch and siren and 
thundered through the columns of its weekly periodical, 
"Christian Science is both unscientific and unchristian," a catch 
phrase so shopworn as to be beyond all possibility of renova- 
tion. 

But on what grounds is Christian Science to be adjudged 
unscientific ? What is science ? Natural science, I suppose the 
good Doctor means. Sir Oliver Lodge answers the question 
substantially as follows: "Science is the present state of hu- 
man knowledge on the part of men of study and research 
concerning the phenomena visible to the corporeal senses." 

"The truths of science are admirable and quite real, but 
there is nothing ultimate about them. They are stages on the 
road to achievement, a difficult and infinite road. Science 
aims at reality but the intermediate steps, however, are 

213 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

likely to be imperfect — our knowledge as expressed by even 
the highest science is necessarily partial and incomplete; it 
only deals with aspects. Divisions and classifications are ar- 
bitrary — they are human conveniences — but Truth itself is con- 
tinuous." ^ 

Materialism or naturalism as a self-sufficing theory of the 
universe is discredited by the best scientific minds. Science 
abounds with theories, hypotheses and daring conjectures con- 
cerning the origin and nature of things and is constantly chang- 
ing its attitude and standpoint towards the scientific questions 
of the day. 

Lord Kelvin, the present dean of the physical scientists, 
in a speech delivered in Glasgow in 1896 and quoted by a 
contributor to the Boston Transcript of May 24, 1905, said of 
his long and notable list of discoveries : "One word character- 
izes the most strenuous efforts for the advancement of science 
that I have made perseveringly during fifty-five years — that 
word is failure. I know no more of electric and magnetic 
force, or of the relation between ether, electricity, and ponder- 
able matter, or of chemical affinity than I knew and tried to 
teach my students of natural philosophy in my first session as 
a professor." 

The scientist has chased matter from molecule to atom and 
from atom to particle and from particle to electron and from 
electron to energy and motion, and from motion into electricity 
and then into some mode of motion of the ether of space, 
where it has lost every material property and is resolved into 
its native nothingness. He has studied the problem of man's 
origin and nature until there is a growing consensus of opinion 
on the part of a most distinguished body of scientists that man 
is of the essence of Divinity. Both conclusions were anticipated 
by Mary Baker Eddy over thirty years ago. That God is In- 

^Sir Oliver Lodge. Reason and Belief, pages yy and 81. 

214 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE 

finite Spirit ; that man partakes of His nature and is therefore 
spiritual and not material and not subject to decay and death; 
that matter has no attribute of Spirit, and no inherent reality 
or substance, and therefore possesses neither life, intelligence 
nor sensation in and of itself, is the essence of Christian 
Science. These are the fundamental or basic principles of 
Mrs. Eddy's teachings. 

According to Mrs. Eddy, the term Science, properly under- 
stood, refers only to the laws of God and to His government 
of the universe including man. God's laws are perfect and 
eternal, and are evidenced by the healing of disease and other 
manifestations of control over discordant conditions as demon- 
strated by Jesus Christ and the early Christian church. Ma- 
terialistic Science has made the mistake of accepting the hu- 
man mentality in its entirety as a basis for its systems of 
thought and its formulations of human knowledge. Christian 
Science challenges the validity of a mentality made up of self- 
evident contradictions and asserts that human thought is only 
real as it reflects the Divine thought. 

The scientific notion that the laws of the universe are ma- 
terial, instead of spiritual, has led mankind to look upon the 
miracles of the Bible, either as violations of law or a direct 
interposition of Deity, or else as mere fiction. They were not 
understood, and so were relegated to the past. In miracles, 
God's will seems to conflict with His law, and the more pro- 
gressive thinkers found it difficult or impossible to reconcile 
a personal will in God with a universe of law and order. 

Within the last century the advancing thought, grown tired 
of creeds and dogmas and uncertain scientific theories and 
speculation, has been crying out for the practical and certain, 
the helpful and spiritual in religion. A higher revelation, a 
truer conception of God and His will has become a necessity. 
Only a demonstrable religion can satisfy the truly scientific 
spirit of this age. 

215 



'ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

Christian Science in imparting a definite knowledge of 
Spiritual law, has revealed the truth about the miracles re- 
corded in the Scriptures. It teaches and demonstrates, that 
those unusual works were performed in accord with law that 
they were not extraordinary occurrences whose repetition is 
impossible or unlikely, but are equally possible to-day with a 
similar understanding of God's unchanging laws. 

But is Christian Science unchristian ? Dr. Buckley sounded 
the charge and orthodoxy has echoed it ever since, seemingly 
overlooking the fact that Jesus Christ made the supreme test 
of love, loyalty and fellowship with him to consist in keeping 
his commandments. Among these commands was the com- 
mission not only to preach the gospel, and to say "the King- 
dom of Heaven is at hand," but also to heal the sick, which 
last especially involve the duty to demonstrate the approach 
and reality of his Kingdom in the lives of his followers. 
Orthodoxy is confessedly derelict in its obedience to this 
command. True, it has set apart a priesthood to preach 
the Gospel, but it has handed over the healing of the sick to a 
medical profession which is thoroughly materialistic in its pro- 
fessional work and may be purely infidel. Christian Science 
is confessedly faithful in fulfilling this commission. 

''The fulfilment of the grand verities of Christian healing 
belong to every period, as Jesus' declaration in John xiv-12 
plainly declares, and as primitive Christianity confirms. His 
words are unmistakable, for they form propositions of self- 
evident, demonstrable truth. Doctrines that deny the substance 
and practicability of all Christ's teachings cannot be evangel- 
ical ; and evangelical religion can be established on no other 
claim than the authenticity of the gospels which support un- 
equivocably the proof that Christian Science as defined and 
practised by Jesus, heals the sick, casts out error and will de- 
stroy death. "^ 



1 Miscellaneous Writings, page tq2. 

216 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE 

Christian Science lays especial stress upon the command of 
the Master to heal the sick and to do greater works than those 
which He did. Mrs. Eddy's language on this point is most 
emphatic : 

"Though a man were begirt with the Urim and Thummim 
of priestly office, yet should deny the vaHdity or permanence 
of Christ's command to heal in all ages, this denial would dis- 
honor that office and misinterpret evangelical religion."^ 

The question is therefore a pertinent one; "which is the 
more Christian, unorthodox Christian Science which accepts 
and emphasizes Jesus' commission by its works, or orthodox 
Christianity which has ceased to function, so far as spiritual 
healing is concerned?" 

Jesus met the demand of John the Baptist, "Art thou the 
Christ?" by referring to the works which he performed. He 
has made the ability to in some measure perform His works 
the test of the genuineness of His professed followers' claims 
to the title of Christian. After two thousand years of religious 
education, is it not a startling commentary upon our latter 
day Clerics, to find them denouncing as heretical the one 
Church which has accepted and is fulfilling the Christ test 
"in spirit and in truth." 

III. 

It is claimed that Christian Science contradicts the Bible 
in its teachings concerning the nature and destiny of man? 
The Scriptures contain two records of creation, both given in 
the opening chapters of Genesis. Christian Science can 
scarcely contradict both accounts, for one is a spiritual and 
the other a materialistic narration of man's origin and Christian 
Science teaches that man is spiritual and not material. The 
first account — the Elohoistic story as it is termed — is the scien- 
tific record of creation by a scientist who perceived its glorious 

* Miscellaneous Writings, page 194. 

217 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

spiritual signification. The second, or Jehovistic account, is 
materialistic, in fact, so thoroughly materialistic as to shut 
out any apprehension of the nature and operation of Spirit. 

This spiritual account, by transposition of the Pentateuch 
writers, comes first in the record of Genesis and forms the 
impressive opening chapter. Professor Sayce, a great 
scholar and Biblical authority, describes it as "a noble and 
simple declaration of the making of all things by God, who is 
one, holy and benevolent," and characterizes it as expressing 
wonderful spiritual discernment and insight. 

The materialism of the earlier account is of the most pro- 
nounced type. It presents a material, sensual and mortal 
theory of the universe and of man's origin, in which evil is 
accepted as a fact of experience whose origin an attempt is 
made to solve. There is a total absence of anything approach- 
ing a spiritual view of man. In the first chapter God is de- 
clared to have made man in His own image and likeness by a 
single command. In the second chapter He is represented as 
forming man's body out of dust into which he breathed "the 
breath of life." 

How this senseless figure became possessed of a skeleton 
framework, overlaid with muscles ; how it became possessed of 
respiratory organs and a circulating system with capacities 
for prolonging existence by means of food utilized through 
various digestive or assimilative processes ; whether God made 
the body complete and the living soul simply started the ma- 
chinery going, or whether the living soul had something to 
do in the creation of its functional organs or capacities, or 
whether it was the medium whereby the body was changed 
from inanimate to animate clay, the materialistic biographer 
neglects to tell us. He leaves it a subject of speculation and 
such it has remained until in these latter days science is com- 
ing to understand more about the real origin and destiny of 
man than this early materialist did. 

218 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE 

In the first chapter of Genesis, God pronounced good all 
that He created, and the Scriptures declare that He created all. 
In the second chapter He is represented as creating the tree 
of knowledge of good and evil. In this account evil is given 
its first recognition in Scripture. The knowledge of evil is 
here regarded as real, and hence as God-bestowed, as the 
knowledge of good. God is represented as instituting evil 
and creating this fruit-bearing tree of sin. Out of this nar- 
rative materialism has evolved the theory that God created 
evil as a necessary adjunct of a well ordered cosmos of human 
experience, so that man may know evil as well as good and 
may perfect himself by learning to reject the worst, after an 
experience of its inadequacy and the sorrow and misery to 
which it leads. Yet this theory ignores completely the fact 
tha;t God took especial pains, by express and dire threats, to 
keep the race out of the knowledge of evil, a knowledge, or 
rather a belief in the reality of evil which has been the cause 
of untold misery ever since. 

This theory is also destructive of the character of God, 
because if evil existed in the Mind of God, this assumption of 
evil and error would dethrone the perfection of Deity. The 
Bible is not a book of the knowledge of good and evil and it 
distinctly teaches that God is of too pure eyes to look upon 
evil. Sin, sickness and death have no record in the Elohoistic 
introduction of Genesis, wherein God creates the heavens, 
earth and man. Until that which contradicts the truth of 
being enters into the arena, evil has no history, and it is, in 
the view of the founder of Christian Science, brought into 
view only as the unreal in contra-distinction to the real and 
eternal. 

Man's environment, according to this materialistic narrative, 
was as material as his nature. He is placed in a garden full 
of things pleasant to the sight and good for food; a place 
"where every prospect pleased" and the materialistic sense of 

219 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

the fitness and fulness of things found ample gratification ; a 
state of existence where there was an abundance of good 
things to eat, plenty of beautiful things to look at; easy hours 
of labor, abundance of leisure for enjoying one's self and giv- 
ing free rein to every impulse except in one specific direction. 

But here the account takes note of an important oversight 
in the creation of human life upon this planet. God had pro- 
vided for the propagation of animal life of all kinds by creat- 
ing the order of male and female, except in the case of hu- 
man beings. How human life was to be perpetuated does not 
appear at first, and one may surmise or conjecture as to how 
God originally intended to provide for this flaw in the origin 
of the human species. There is however a reference to Adam's 
loneliness and need of a companion which God supplied in a 
thoroughly original manner by making a woman out of one 
of Adam''s ribs, as if the supply of "dust" had given out. But 
this was done ostensibly as a mere concession to Adam's need 
of companionship. 

In the first chapter of Genesis we have an account of the 
origin and nature of man, in which the glorious fact of crea- 
tion is announced, viz. : that God made man, male and female, 
in His image and likeness, that is spiritually conceived and 
evolved. In the materialistic account, God finds it necessary 
to take Adam into partnership, not only to secure a suitable 
companion for him by making him the basis for the creation 
of a woman, but to institute a union between Adam and the 
woman in order to provide a new order of generation for the 
human species, and thus preserve the race from extinction. 
But if man is a spiritual creation, as the Scriptures declare, 
then, as Mrs. Eddy has profoundly said — "Life is not embry- 
onic, it is infinite. An egg is an impossible enclosure for Deity.^ 

Biology teaches that the origin of life is to be found in a 
material seed, the cell or protoplasm, that this cell must decay 

1 Science and Health, page 550. 

220 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE 

in order to propagate the species and the resultant germ be 
doomed to the same routine. According to the Scriptures, 
Adam was ceated before Eve hence it is seen that he did not 
spring from a material ^gg. Eve was formed from Adam's 
rib, not from a foetal ovum. The theory which the material- 
istic biologist has adopted to account for human origin, viz. : 
that the ovum is the point of emergence for the human race, 
may be replaced by other theories equally materialistic. At 
present the cell theory holds the field and has superseded the 
ancient superstition about man's creation from the dust. 

\ The Lord Jehovah is represented as introducing two 
changes in the original modus operandi of instituting human 
life, viz. : that both the dust method and the rib method for 
some unstated reason should be discarded, and that man should 
henceforth be born of woman. Mrs. Eddy has pertinently ob- 
served, 

"If, in the beginning, man's body originated in non-intelli- 
gent dust, and mind was afterwards put into the body by the 
Creator, why is not this divine order still maintained by God in 
perpetuating the species? Who will say that minerals, vege- 
tables, and animals have a propagating property of their own? 
Who dare to say either that God is in matter or that matter 
exists without God? Has man sought out other creative in- 
ventions, and so changed the method of his Maker ?"^ 

But let us return to the materialistic account of what fol- 
lows the debut of evil. One of the animals which God is 
represented as having made and which is described as being 
more subtile than any beast of the field, comes in the guise 
of a talking serpent and suggests that Eve disobey God's com- 
m.and and eat of the fruit of the tree of good and evil. Strange 
that the snake did not also suggest that she take of the fruit of 
the tree of life so that she might thus escape the death penalty 
which God had imposed in case she followed the suggestion 

^ Science and Health, page 531. 

221 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

of the serpent ! Or did he omit to do so through malice afore- 
thought? Evidently neither the serpent nor Eve were im- 
pressed as deeply as they ought to have been with the serious- 
ness of the threat which God has made. Eve is represented as 
seeing the fruit as good for food, besides being beautiful in 
appearance and something to be greatly desired, "to make one 
wise," and so "she took the fruit thereof and did eat and gave 
also to her husband, and he did eat." 

The whole story is a relic of snake worship. You will 
find traces of this ancient worship of knowledge under the 
form of a snake in many parts of the world ; indeed there are 
some lands even to-day, where this worship still survives. 
"A reverent king removed the brazen serpent out of the house 
of Yahweh," says Allen Upward, "but no one has been rev- 
erent enough to remove the Serpent myth out of the Book 
of Yahweh." 

Section two of the story deals with the consequences of 
this alleged disobedience of our first parents. God, the in- 
finite Creator, is presented in human guise, walking in the 
garden in the cool of the day. His Omniscience is thrown into 
the background. As a human father, He questions His chil- 
dren to find out what mischief they had been doing. Eve 
confessed, so did Adam, but Adam seems to have proved equal 
to the occasion, for he had the assurance to put the blame on 
God himself as well as on woman for his dereliction. This 
boldness evidently made an impression on the great Creator, 
from what follows later in the story. God had told them 
explicitly that if they ate of the fruit of the tree of good and 
evil, that very day they should surely die. Like many an 
earthly parent he seemed reluctant to carry out what seems 
to have been a hasty threat. Judged by the usual standard of 
parental discipline, this was a bad breach. But He threat- 
ened to do what many an earthly parent has vowed he would 

222 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE 

do to his children in case of disobedience, namely, make them 
"sweat for it." And so in a passion God puts Adam to work 
to earn his own living by onerous toil, first taking pains to 
curse the ground to make sure that Adam would have a hard 
time of it. God spared none of the actors in this drama, which 
reached so swift and fateful a climax. For Eve He had no 
pity. He told her that He would greatly multiply her troubles 
in life. He decreed her to be the slave of her husband, and 
that her child-bearing should be attended with much suffering 
and sorrow. The serpent he doomed to a grovelling life in 
dust of the earth. 

For God to sow enmity between the seed of the serpent and 
Eve's seed seems a work of supererogation, for there must 
have been bitterness enough already in the heart of Eve and 
of Adam towards their deceiver. Throughout the whole in- 
terview God is depicted as a cold, heartless, unfeeling tyrant, 
not only venting His cruel rage upon those whom He had 
brought into being, but laying a curse upon all mankind that 
should come after them, because Adam and Eve stole the 
knowledge of good and evil from Him! 

In the first chapter God gave man dominion over the earth 
which He blessed for man's sake. Here He is presented as 
changing His mind, literally implying that God deliberately 
withheld from man the opportunity to reform, lest he should 
improve it and so become better. He turns Adam and Eve 
out of the beautiful home which He had given them; He sends 
them forth into a world which He had cursed for their sake 
that it might bring forth thorns and thistles, leaving them to 
take care of themselves as best they could until they returned 
to the dust out of which He had taken them. 

This whole conception of God is most demeaning. No 
human father, however furious and ungovernable his temper, 
would think of passing the death sentence upon his first-born 

223 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

son and daughter for a single act of disobedience. For God 
to destroy in a fit of passion the children into whom He had 
breathed a part of His very self, and thus leave Himself child- 
less, is a pagan, mythological, God-dishonoring and blighting 
conception of the nature and attributes of God. 

It does not appear what was to become of the living soul 
which God had breathed into the inanimate figure He had 
fashioned. The materialistic scientist could not answer the 
question then, nor can he answer it any better now. We can 
only infer from this account that the breath of life must have 
been as mutable and mortal as the body itself. God forbade 
Adam to eat of the tree of life lest his existence on this planet 
would be prolonged indefinitely. The conclusion that both soul 
and body were mortal is further strengthened by God's de- 
cree : "Dust thou art and unto dust shall thou return." This 
wholly materialistic conception of man's origin and nature, 
raises the question "was the breath of life which God breathed 
into man His own breath, a part of Himself? If so, was He 
as material as the man which He had thus created? 

But while God barred Adam and Eve from the garden and 
denied them access to the tree of life and doomed Adam to 
return to dust. He nevertheless chose to suspend indefinitely 
the death sentence. It does not appear that He established any 
age limit until a much later period ; in fact, man was allowed 
to live a most unconscionable length of time, longer than hu- 
man beings have ever lived since. Could it have been possible 
that the watch over the tree of life was relaxed, or the cher- 
ubim withdrawn and that Adam managed somehow to gain 
entrance to the garden and to eat of the fruit of the tree of 
life? At all events, God seemed to have completely forgotten 
all about that little scene in the Garden. It would have been 
a good thing if the human race had also forgotten it. There 
would have been a vastly less preponderance of misery over 
happiness in human experience. 

224 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE 

I do not mean to be irreverent in my attitude towards the 
Bible. I accept and revere the spiritual signification of its 
terms, but the barest recital of the salient features of this 
materialistic story of man's creation and downfall carries its 
own refutation as an authoritative account of man's origin and 
God's attributes. Matter has no ability to sin and suffer, nor 
is spirit, God, injected into dust and eventually ejected at the 
demand of matter. Yet this materialistic account represents 
Spirit as entering dust and losing the divine nature and omni- 
potence. 

The whole narrative which I have followed closely, exalts 
the validity of matter and dethrones the validity of spirit and 
Spirit's creations. It flatly contradicts the spiritually correct 
account of the creation of the universe and presents God, the 
infinite Creator, in the guise of a fallible, frailable, malevolent, 
anthropomorphic being, full of human weakness. It is a most 
demeaning conception of Deity and gives point to IngersoU's 
irreverent jest, "An honest God is the noblest work of man." 
With reverence, I declare that such a Deity could have no 
claim to our confidence. We may forgive the materialistic 
scientist of the present age if he declines to accept this parody 
on God, or relapses into blank atheism, which is quite excus- 
able, nay, becomes a virtue, if this account be the truth con- 
cerning the nature and attributes of God and the origin and 
destiny of man. 

I have taken pains to study Mrs. Eddy's analysis of these 
two stories of creation contained in Genesis. While Christian 
Science emphatically contradicts the second chapter account 
there is an unequivocal acceptance of the spiritual origin of 
man as described in the first chapter ; and an emphatic declara- 
tion that man is not material but spiritual ; that his life is in 
God. Christian Science pronounces itself in full accord with 
the narative of man's origin given in the first chapter of Gene- 
sis. It is not in accord, however, with the account contained in 

225 



'ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

the second chapter. Is it for this reason that the theologians 
condemn Christian Science as unscriptural ? Is Christian 
Science adjudged to be heterodox because it decHnes to accept 
as one of the tenets of its faith the materiaHstic account of 
man's origin and destiny contained in the second chapter of 
Genesis. But will the orthodox clerics seriously affirm that 
the second chapter is the correct and the first chapter the in- 
correct account of man's origin and destiny? Which horn of 
this dilemma are they likely to take in their eagerness to dis- 
credit Christian Science? Will they take the one which dis- 
credits the God they worship? What think you, members of 
the Jury ? 



226 



IV. 

THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH. 

THE Christian Science movement is a revolutionary move- 
ment. It is. at war with the senses. It is a struggle 
"for the freedom of health, holiness and attainment of 
heaven." The issues which Mary Baker Eddy precipitated may 
be briefly summarized as follows : 

Is reliance to be placed as heretofore on the drug system, 
or are spiritual methods of healing to be recognized as the 
proper means to be employed in case of illness? 

Are material remedies, inanimate matter, human person- 
ality, and hypnotic suggestion, or the Omnipotent mind, the 
Divine energies of Spirit, to be the curative agency through 
which the human race is to find deliverance from its bondage 
to sickness and disease? 

Is it the so called sub-conscious mind upon which physician, 
clergyman, or mental healer must alike depend for the relief 
or recovery of the sick, or are the ravages of sin, sickness and 
death to be stayed by the Divine Mind — ''the absolute Divine 
Principal of scientific being and healing, before which sin 
and disease lose their reality in human consciousness ?" 

"In this revolutionary period," as Mrs. Eddy has declared, 
"like the shepherd-boy with his sling, woman goes forth to 
battle with Goliath." And the odds apparently were as much 
against her as they were against the stripling David when he 
accepted the challenge of the Philistine Giant. Mrs. Eddy's 
metaphysical system of healing bodily ailments challenged ma- 
terialistic hypotheses to meet in final combat. The Science 
which she proclaimed has had to face the opposition of a 
thoroughly materialistic and skeptical age. It has encountered 
the bitter antagonism of a medical profession, thoroughly ma- 

227 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

terialistic in its professional work. The scientist, the philoso- 
opher, the theologian, the metaphysician, the materialist, con- 
demned Mrs. Eddy's teachings and united in efforts to ac- 
complish its overthrow. The reactionaries, recruited from the 
old schools of medicine and theology hastened to do battle 
in defense of old time dogmas, creeds, and theories. The 
doctors, solidly opposed to any change in present theories or 
methods of medical treatment, scouted the teachings of 
Christian Science on the subject of mind healing and stoutly 
denied the reality of the cures effected by Christian Science 
practitioners. The clerics derided the doctrines promulgated 
by Mrs. Eddy and pronounced them unscientific and un- 
scriptural. 

Powerful vested interests influenced by mercenary consid- 
erations, vigorously opposed the progress of the movement. 
Secular and religious newspapers, journals and magazines 
threw the whole weight of their influences against it. A per- 
sistent campaign of vilification, mis-representation, abuse, and 
persecution was carried on in an endeavor to discredit Chris- 
tian Science, its leader, and to accomplish its downfall. Why? 
The success of the Christian Science movement meant a 
revolution in medical practice. It foreshadowed the doom of 
medical procedures. For the drug system it would substitute 
a scientific and demonstrable curative principle and a method 
of treatment conducted on a Scriptural basis of Christ-healing. 
Over and against the insufliciency of material remedies and 
human personality it would place the fulness and sufliciency 
of spiritual healing through the power of Omnipotent mind. 
What wonder, then that the vested interests fought? They 
heard their death knell. 

On the one side were ranged materia medica and its material 
methods of treating disease, including other material or semi- 
material means of relief from physical ills, hygiene, electric- 
ity, osteopathy, animal magnetism, human personality, hyp- 

228 



THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 

notic suggestion and psycho-therapeutic procedures. And who 
was the implacable foe who drew this army into the field? A 
woman without worldly influence or resources, who single- 
handed undertook to wage a seemingly hopeless battfe against 
the materiality of the age. 

Humanly speaking, the result was a foregone conclusion. 
But Mrs. Eddy fearlessly met the challenge. 

As Goliath of old derided his opponent, so did the present 
age meet the founder of Christian Science with scorn and 
derision, with abuse and confident assertion of ignominious 
defeat. It ridiculed her endeavor to bring a new healing 
evangel to the world ; to create a new religious order ; to found 
a church based on the principles laid down in her book ; to 
raise up a body of Christian Science practitioners who should 
be able to heal *'all manner of sickness and all manner of 
disease" as in the time of Jesus. 

Elijah, "the prophet of flame and thunder," whom God had 
answered with fire from Heaven, consuming the sacrifice, the 
altar upon which it was laid, and the water that filled the 
trenches, suffered a violent reaction of spirit, and lost his 
courage when an idolatrous Queen, who had slain the prophets 
of the Lord, threatened to take his life also. He fled to the 
wilderness, where discouraged and physically exhausted he 
asked God that he might die because he was not better than his 
fathers, and because the children of Israel had forsaken God, 
torn down His altars and slain His prophets. 

What has enabled Mrs. Eddy to remain fearlessly at her 
post of duty, despite the threats of those opposed to her? 
Why has she never yielded to despair nor faltered in her al- 
legiance to the cause which she espoused? Let the following 
glimpse of her reHgious experience, given in Miscellaneous 
Writings, be a suflicient answer : 

"To preserve a long course of years still and uniform amid 
the darkness of storm and cloud and tempest, requires strength 

229 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

from above — deep draughts from the fount of divine Love^ — 
the spiritual glow and grandeur of a consecrated life wherein 
dwelleth peace, sacred and sincere, in trial or triumph," 

III. * 

Goliath fell before the sling of the shepherd-boy. The 
woman who went forth to battle with the educational systems 
of to-day has triumphed. She has achieved the seemingly im- 
possible. The task to which she has devoted her life, the 
demonstration of the Christ-healing, the saving of the lame, the 
deaf, the dumb, the blind, the sick, the sensual, the sinner, 
the establishment of a church that should commemorate Jesus' 
words and works, — all have been accomplished in this age and 
during her lifetime. 

All question as to the possibility of Mary Baker Eddy's 
ability to establish a new religious order, or successfully 
demonstrate the metaphysical principle of healing as laid down 
in Science and Health, is removed by a candid and unpreju- 
diced consideration of the facts pertaining to the spread of 
the movement and the healing ministry conducted by Christian 
Science practitioners. 

Materia medica which now is both empirical and atheistic 
in its professional work must needs become scientific and 
Christian. It must reach the true source of disease, instead 
of confining its attention to the treatment of effects, registered 
in the human body through diseased thinking. Material 
remedies have had their day. Drugs are going out of fashion. 
"The relief of disease," says Dr. Woods Hutchinson, "is no 
longer a matter of providing a few magic powders or sooth- 
ing potions. We have got past that. We no longer believe 
that any drug of itself, will cure any disease." As our mod- 
ern physician-philosopher Osier puts it, "He is the best doctor 
who knows the worthlessness of most drugs." The signs of 
the time presage a new order of medical practice in which 

230 



THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 

faith in drugs, or in the doctors who administer them, will give 
place to faith in the healing power of the divine Mind, and 
Christian Science mind-healing will become the true specific 
for human ailments. 

A materialistic age is being succeeded by an age of Chris- 
tian idealism. "The old order changeth," and this is quite as 
true of medicine as it is of politics and religion. Physiology, 
anatomy and hygiene must be studied from a new standpoint. 
Medical text books on a material basis, like the outlived dogmas 
and creeds embodied in the theological text books of organized 
Christianity, must needs be relegated to that oblivion which is 
bound to overtake them sooner or later. 

Broad-minded members of the medical profession are be- 
ginning to realize that the action of the mind upon the body 
is more powerful than drugs ; that drugs are powerless to reach 
physical ailments which are clearly traceable to mental states 
and conditions. There are doctors in various cities who now 
make a practice of sending to Christian Science practitioners 
cases which they cannot successfully treat with material 
remedies. In some instances as many as six such cases have been 
healed out of eight treated by a single practitioner ! The cures 
effected through Christian Science conclusively demonstrate 
that it is possible to make sick people well without recourse to 
a doctor's prescription or to the shelves of the pharmacist. 

Faith in supposedly curative objects through which deliv- 
erance from physical ills may be secured, has been a charac- 
teristic of the human race from time immemorial. Faith heal- 
ing is as old as humanity itself. So far as the real efficiency 
of the curative agencies employed is concerned, it is faith that 
is at the bottom of all therapeutic practice. Hence we may 
properly conclude that there is nothing which can be considered 
new, strange and startling in the employment of mental meth- 
ods of cure. 

The downfall of the drug system does not necessarily mean 

231 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

the downfall of the medical profession or that there will be no 
need of medical practitioners, at least until we get much nearer 
the millenial age than we now are. The relegation of the 
stage coach to the scrap heap did not mean the loss of all 
transportation facilities. It simply meant the substitution of 
other and better modes of travel, such as the trolley, the rail- 
road, the automobile, and ere long, the flying machine. 

Because Christian Science wars with physical science, the 
old schools of medicine continue to oppose it and to denounce 
this great agency for the advancement of human welfare as 
a source of superstition and bodily damage. Prof. William 
James, the eminent Harvard psychologist, lays the blame on 
a "scientific respectability," which keeps the doctor's mind cure 
sympathies "tied up." A physician may even believe in the 
therapeutic efficiency of prayer, but he is not willing to accept 
it as a medical fact, as well established as the physiological ac- 
tion of castor oil, notwithstanding that the action of inanimate 
matter on the human body is in the highest degree empirical 
instead of scientifically certain. Nevertheless to-day there is 
hardly a city, village, or hamlet, in which are not to be found 
living witness to the virtue and power of Truth. 

To the gentle reader who may think that I am needlessly 
severe on the medical profession, I can only say that what I 
have written has been under the compulsion of facts developed 
in my study of the Christian Science movement. If I have 
used what may seem like strong language in emphasizing the 
insufficiency of material remedies, I have endeavored through- 
out to avoid the intrusion of the personal element. I am free 
to admit that I have but little respect for the drug system, but 
I have plenty of respect for those members of the medical pro- 
fession whom I have had occasion to know. What I have 
said, however, is only the cooing of the turtle dove compared 
with what medical practitioners themselves have had to say 
about medicine as a science. As a matter of fact the hardest 

232 



THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 

things said against the practice of medicine on the basis of 
the drug system came not from those outside, but from those 
inside the profession. 

For instance, at a recent conference of several hundred 
eminent physicians, held to discuss the curative properties of 
the new pitch blende discovery — radium, a distinguished au- 
thority in materia medica made this statement : 

"There is nothing dawning upon the profession to-day with 
more certainty than that medicine as a curative agency is fail- 
ing. The most conservative practitioners are depending less 
and less each year upon drugs as a means of combating dis- 
eases. For many hundred years, consumption has been treated 
with drugs and nobody has been cured by them." 

As to the records of medicine, Dr. Chapman of the Institute 
and Practice of Physics in the University of Pennsylvania is 
equally emphatic : 

"We cannot help being disgusted with the multitude of 
hypotheses obtruded upon us at different times. Nowhere is 
the imagination displayed to a greater extent; and perhaps so 
ample an exhibition of human invention might gratify our 
vanity, if it were not more than compensated by the humiliat- 
ing view of so much absurdity, contradiction, and falsehood. 
To harmonize the contrarieties of medical doctrines is indeed 
a task as impracticable as to arrange the fleeting vapours 
around us, or to reconcile the fixed and repulsive autipathies 
of nature. Dark and perplexed, our devious career resembles 
the grouping of Homer's Xyclops around his cave." 

To this may be joined this declaration by an English phys- 
ician, Mr. John Forbes, Fellow of the Royal College of Phys- 
icians in London : 

"No systematic or theoretical classification of diseases or 
of any therapeutic agents ever yet promulgated, is true, or any 
thin^ like the truth, and none can be adopted as a safe guid- 
ance in practice." 

Oliver Wendell Holmes, in a lecture before the Harvard 
Medical School, years ago boldly asserted what few outsiders 

233 



'ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

would have the courage to say, "I firmly believe that if the 
whole of materia medica could be sunk to the bottom of the 
sea, it would be all the better for mankind, and all the worse 
for the fishes." 

Dr. Mason Good, a London professor, makes an even more 
startling assertion : "The effects of medicine upon the human 
system are in the highest degree uncertain ; except indeed, that 
it has already destroyed more lives than war, pestilence, and 
famine, all combined." 

The celebrated Dr. Abercrombe, Fellow of the Royal Col- 
lege of Physicians, Edinburgh, declares, that "Medicine is 
the science of guessing." Dr. James Johnson, Surgeon Ex- 
traordinary to the King, is even more emphatic: "I declare," 
says he, "my conscientious opinion founded on long observa- 
tion and reflection, that if there were not a single physician, 
apothecary, man-midwife, chemist, druggist, or drug on the 
face of the earth, there would be less sickness and less mor- 
tality." 

In arguing against a proposed medical bill, at a hearing 
held before the joint committee on Public Health of the Massa- 
chusetts legislature in March, 1898, Professor William Jones, 
of Harvard University, said: "I come to protest against the 
bill simply as a citizen who cares for sound laws and for the 
advance of medical knowledge. Were^ medicine a finished 
science, with all practitioners in agreement about methods of 
treatment, a bill to make it penal to treat a patient without 
having passed an examination would be unobjectionable. But 
the present condition of medical knowledge is widely different 
from such a state. Both as to principle and as to prac- 
tice our knowledge is deplorably imperfect. The whole 
face of medicine changes unexpectedly from one gen- 
eration to another in consequence of widening experience, and 
as we look back with a mixture of amusement and horror at 

234 



THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 

the practice of our grandfathers, so we cannot be sure how 
large a portion of our present practice will awaken similar 
feelings in our posterity." 

Not less significant are the remarks of Dr. George R. Pat- 
ten, one of the leading physicians and surgeons of the North- 
west, in an article entitled, "The Mind as a Dynamic Force" : 

"It is a matter of common observation that medical theories 
and remedies of a few years ago have been discarded and that 
others have taken their places. In fact, the practice of medi- 
cine is no more an exact science than the making of pies or 
doughnuts. There are fads and fashions in medicine just as 

there are in bonnets, and they change about as often 

Mental influence alone may diminish or increase the activity of 
normal physiological processes to the extent of removing path- 
ological effects or disease. In a general way, the effects of 
drugs are uncertain, perturbing and distinctly disappointing. 

It is a ludicrous fact that the average patient, when 

paying out money, expects to see some sign that he is getting 
'value received' in the shape of bottles and pill-boxes; and so 
the unfortunate doctor may have no option but to deceive. As 
time passes less reliance is being placed on drugs. As knowl- 
edge of disease increases, the use of medicine decreases. It is 
reasonably assured that ultimately the physician will become, 
not as much the man behind the pill as the judicious adviser, 
the wise counsellor, gently leading the sick 'into green pas- 
tures, beside still waters,' through paths that lead onward to 
recovery, assisting nature at times, if need be, with a big bread 
pill." 

"The old blind, implicit confidence in drugs is gone," says 
Dr. Woods Hutchinson. "The doctors no longer hold the 
naive belief that if they could only find and give the one right 
remedy it would *do the rest,' like some magic button when 
pressed. Physicians themselves admit that one of the greatest 
obstacles to progress is the use of drugs, one of the greatest 
difficulties in sifting the helpful from the worthless, has been 
and is yet due to the fact that about eighty-five per cent, of all 
illnesses get well of their own accord, no matter what may be 

235 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

or may not be done for them. The authority whom we have 
already quoted (Dr. Hutchinson) is responsible for the aston- 
ishing admission made in Hampton's Magazine recently, that 
'any drug which is used with sufficient constancy and under 
favorable circumstances in any disease will score eighty-five 
per cent, of cures, providing it is not positively harmful.' " 

The gravest difficulty of the drug problem is found in the 
fact that the oldest, most highly prized and most universally 
used drugs are unfortunately the most dangerous and poison- 
ous, and it is predicted that the biggest struggle that the com- 
ing doctor will have over the drug system, will be to break the 
deadly grip which they have upon the confidence and the aif ec- 
tions both of the profession and the public. That opium and 
alcohol form the backbone of the patent medicine business, 
is so well within the truth, that the assertion is freely made by 
medical practitioners that if these were taken away the busi- 
ness would collapse in forty-eight hours. 

What then do the signs of the time presage? As I read 
their augury and seek to interpret the significance of the fore- 
going facts and considerations, I think that I am not wide of 
the mark in reaching the following conclusion, viz. : Before 
the twentieth century is half over, there will be an almost com- 
plete loss of confidence in the healing efficacy of drugs. The 
indications are not wanting that such a change of attitude on 
the part of multitudes of intelligent men and women is already 
taking place? What therapeutic system will take its place? 
Does not the progress of the Christian Science mind 
healing movement clearly indicate that within the next ten 
years this system will be generally accepted as the most 
efficacious system of cure and will be generally and success- 
fully practiced? This does not mean that the doctors will 
have to go out of business. It means that in sheer self-preser- 
vation the present systems of treating disease on a drug basis 
will be abandoned for methods of mental treatment, and that 

236 



THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 

an increasing proportion of the medical profession will be- 
come Christian Science practitioners. As for drugs the time 
is swiftly approaching when the world will firmly agree with 
Oliver Wendell Holmes in his conclusion that it were better 
for mankind if the whole materia medica were sunk to the 
bottom of the sea. 



2^7 



prt 4 



"Give me, O God, to sing this thought, 

Belief in plan of Thee, enclosed in Time and Space, 

Health, Peace, Salvation universal. 

Is it a dream f 

Nay, but the lack of it a dream. 

And failing it, life's love and zvealth a dream, 

And all the world a dream." 

— Walt Whitman. 



240 



ORGAIsJiZED CHRISTIANITY. 
Some Facts and Considerations. 

IT is fast becoming evident that there is no finality about the 
Christian Church as a permanent organism in society, 
at least, so far as the present ecclesiastical systems are to be 
taken as its exponent. The modern institutional church is 
many leagues removed from the pure Christianity of the New 
Testament type, to which I have already briefly alluded. The. 
main things with which it has concerned itself, those functions 
which it has voluntarily assumed, every enlightened municipal- 
ity is now prosecuting with all the force and efficiency of 
municipal and state machinery. Organized Christianity will, 
therefore, shortly cease to have any raison d'etre so far as its 
various social, reforming, ameliorating, philanthropic agencies 
are concerned. 

How stands the Church to-day? And by the Church I do 
not mean the religion of Jesus Christ. These are not always 
synonymous terms. I candidly believe there is more honesty, 
truth and charity, more real religious power in the world to- 
day than ever before, but it is not all in the church and does 
not find expression in the ecclesiastical language of the past. 
By the Church, I mean organized Christianity as a great sac- 
erdotal corporation. What we co-ordinate under this term is 
an aggegation of institutions and usages around the central 
idea of the Christian faith. As it stands to-day it represents 
an assimilation to the world, in which the pure Christianity 

241 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

of Jesus Christ has come to live, which has been at the ex- 
pense of its higher ethical and finer spiritual elements and its 
ministry to the physical needs of mankind. The Christianity 
that is merely of sects, the pulpit and fashionable society, car- 
ries within its organism the seeds of decay and dissolution. 

This age rightly demands that organized Christianity shall 
realize the unity of classes and peoples, the common faith and 
hope and charity, its obedience towards God and duty towards 
men which Christ symbolized. To the extent which it has 
failed to do this it is unchristian and unfaithful to the trust 
committed to it. 

Organized Christianity in its jealous concern for the honor 
and permanency- of the priestly office has failed to apply the 
sovereignty of Christ as the sole institution of faith and wor- 
ship; it has failed to show how the Christian idea can fulfil 
the ideal of humanity. 

Jesus Christ completely reversed the belief that God's at- 
titude towards His children needs or could be changed by the 
offering of gifts and sacrifices. But this old belief still sur- 
vives in those elaborate dogmas and institutions, sacrificial and 
ceremonial, which are the proudest work of man and the dis- 
tinguishing characteristic of organized Christianity as it exists 
to-day. 

One of the most recent and the most scathing indictments 
of the Church has been drawn by a Baptist minister, a pro- 
fessor in the Chicago University, George Burnham Foster, and 
may be found in a recent volume from his pen entitled "The 
Function of Religion." He pictures the church as on the 
wrong track and questions whether it is not like an old tree 
whose fruit-bearing days are over. The difficulties of its 
situation are enlarged upon, such as the estrangement of the 
masses and the emergence of triumphant competitors, as bear- 
ers of the ideal interests of humanity in which the church form- 
erly had a monopoly. Among these competitors of the church in 

242 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 

its educational and charitable work are the State and Munici- 
palities who are assuming this work with increasing intelligence 
and humanity. 

In these latter years a number of special agencies have 
emerged whose natural and specific function is to care for 
destitution and for politics and for education and morals as 
well. Once the church founded all manner of educational in- 
stitutions, whereas now, the state and private capital build 
schools and colleges. The church, according to Professor 
Foster, is not only dogging the footsteps of science and block- 
ing its every advance, but is lacking in its search for truth. 
He charges it with love of dogma, with pride rather than serv- 
ice, with clericism rather than humanism, and declares that it 
has always been on the reactionary side of every question and 
by virtue of its usurpation and mal-administration, religion is 
perverted and the free and normal development of human 
culture is menaced. 

The church is represented as a dabbler in politics, charity, 
and medicine, in which fact he discerns the proof of a be- 
wildered and desperate confusion as to its true functions. He 
describes it as hobbling along behind all the progress of life, 
regarding it with envious and jealous eyes, because every new 
advance would make her by so much superfluous, thus limiting 
her field of labor or imposing upon her the humiliating neces- 
sity of being a busy body and interloper on regions now nor- 
mally occupied by other institutions. 

"It is whispered round," says this militant critic, "that the 
Church in regions of reform and charity and education and 
politics and medicine is something of a bungler and intruder 
practicing squatter sovereignty in territories in which she has 
no constitutional right." 

Once upon a time the church disciplined and restored trans- 
gressors. Now the State does it. Not so long ago the church 
taught its members to forego amusements as a moral peril, 

243 



"ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

now, impelled by an instinct of self-preservation, it seeks to 
hold the patronage of the people by competing with outside 
purveyors of amusement. 

Nor is Dr. Foster content with describing the difficulties 
of its ecclesiastical situation. This fiery critic does not hesi- 
tate to even denounce the church as a "whited sepulchure, full 
of dead men's bones, a place where death is treated as if it 
were life, and life as if it were death." 

The fact that the people do not support the church or at- 
tend its services, is, in his view, not because of indifference to 
ideals, but because other institutions better express and pro- 
mote these ideals. 

"The spiritual values of the people," he asserts, "are more 
effectually conserved and nurtured by other agencies than the 
church." 

II. 

Dr. Fairbairn, one of the ablest of English theologians, re- 
gards Organized Christianity as fundamentally wrong in its 
theory of human nature. He characterizes it as an attempt to 
confine Divine influences to artificial and ordained channels, 
and thereby to make the common life of man either vacant of 
God or alien to Him. 

He declares that the church doubts the presence of God in 
humanity ; limits His grace to a constituted church ; doubts the 
sanity of the human reason, or its affinity with its Maker, and 
regards it as ever tending away from Him, its bent by nature 
being from God rather than to God ; asserts that it is possessed 
with a great fear that man freed from the authority and guid- 
ing care of an organized and apostolic church would infallibly 
break away from the control of His law and truth, and de- 
clares that such a theory makes mere heathens of some of the 
most beautiful and devoted spirits that have advanced true re- 
ligion and promoted the philanthropies of modern times. "It 

244 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 

may be good ecclesiasticism," remarks Dr. Fairbairn, "but it 
is bad Christianity." 

And the organized society, as Dr. Fairbairn well remarks, 
which seeks to enforce respect for its orders, observance of 
its ritual, participation in its worship, submission to its author- 
ity, by invoking the terrors of the world to come, "may be a 
church, but it is not a religion." 

"Organized Christianity," Dr. Fairbairn goes on to say, "is 
confronted with a belligerent and most pronounced unbelief, 
which is reflected in a disheartening loss in church attendance." 

Missionary zeal fails to keep pace with the increase of the 
population and its aggregation in large towns; the church is 
so little penetrated with the spirit of Christ and so dominated 
by the spirit of worldliness, that it is making heathens faster 
than it has been able to rnake Christians." 

Proofs of historical continuity and Catholicity are but sad 
playthings for the ingenious intellect, when urged in behalf of 
churches confronted by such invisible evidences of failure, as 
are the miseries, the sins, the poverty and want, the heathen- 
isms and civilized savageries of to-day. 

"The distance of the churches from the religion of Christ," 
continues Dr. Fairbairn, "is measured not so much by the 
amount of unbelief, both of the critical and uncritical order; 
it is not simply the relatively small number of church-goers, 
nor the failure of missionary zeal to keep pace with the in- 
crease in population and its aggregation in large towns ; nor is 
this distance to be measured by the number and quality of the 
bodies that describe themselves as churches and other no less 
honorable bodies as sects. Neither is it the decline in the 
churches of the love that seeks to emulate, and the growth of 
the envy that love to disparage, that emphasize the distance 
from the religion of Christ." 

It is something more radical than any one of these or even 
air of them, viz. : the small degree in which the Christian ideal 
has been and is the constitutive and regulative idea of the 
churches and of society. 

The poor have a right to expect help from religion, in be- 

245 



'ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

lieving that its mission was to lift them out of the poverty, 
to make an end to charities, that are the hixuries of the rich 
and the miseries of the poor, and to create a society, a free 
and ordered brotherhood, where freedom, justice and plenty 
were to reign. 

"The greed, the selfishness, the sheer individuaHsm and 
mammon worship which excites reprobation ; the heartless and 
contented acquiescence of the church in conditions which de- 
base the soul of the people and erect the extravagant luxury 
of the few and the grinding poverty of the many/' these, as 
Sir Oliver Lodge has so forcibly observed, are among the 
things which Christ would most strongly denounce if he were 
to come again among us. It recalls the parable of the rich 
man and Lazarus in which Jesus said of the former "he 
lifted up his eyes in Hell, being in torment." This teaching 
of the great Nazarene prophet is strikingly similar to that of 
Gautama, the Buddhi, who taught that "to be wealthy, while 
so many thousands are perishing for want of bare necessities 
is the blackest of crimes." 

The churches of to-day are what Wendell Phillips called 
them, "The great apologies for every powerful wrong." If 
we look for the most powerful defenders of the predatory 
rich do we not find them in prominent churchmen like Chan- 
cellor Day and Dr. McArthur ? 

Elisee Reclus, an eminent French scholar, draws this pic- 
ture of our vaunted Christian civilization, as related to city 
life, which he regards as merely a semi-civilization because 
only a majority enjoy its benefits : 

"The slums of our city are more repulsive than anything 
else to be found among the so-called savage tribes. Hundreds 
of thousands, millions probably, beg bread at the doors of 
churches and barracks. Accidents, diseases, deformities and 
congenital defects of every sort, complicated more often than 
not by the random application of bogus remedies, aggravated 

246 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 

by poverty, by the lack of indispensable care, by the absence of 
gaiety and of hope, produce decrepitude long before the nor- 
mal period of old age. The success of some involves the fail- 
ure of others in contemporaneous society and in all the coun- 
tries called civilized. The moral abyss between the manner 
of life of the privileged and of the pariahs has widened. The 
unfortunate have become more unfortunate, because their 
physical sufferings have been irrtated by hatred and envy and 
because their destitution has been aggravated by the con- 
sciousness of forced abstinences." 

Said Frank Moss, one of the leaders of the reform move- 
ment in New York City, to a group of clergymen : 

"I call you to witness, friends ! Has the Christian Church, 
has the Hebrew Church, has any church, in these days of vice, 
in these days of crime that have cursed the city, and from 
which we hope we have been delivered, in these days of shame 
and degradation — ^has any church raised its voice of protest? 
Has any adequate rallying cry gone out from the churches? 
When the time came to fight the organized corruption that had 
seized the governmental powers and stolen young men and 
women right from the very doors of the church; when the 
time came for a fight we had to turn to politicians to organize 
and lead the fight. The church was practically dumb." 

And has the church been any more outspoken during the 
work of the State and the Municipality in Tenement House 
Reform; a reform led by a Tenement Commission and made 
effective by means of legal enactments, designed to remedy 
the shocking conditions in the dirty slums and dark unsanitary 
tenements of our great city. This very law designed to im- 
prove these conditions ; to curb the rapacity and unscrupulous- 
ness of the contractors and owners of tenement property and 
to check the exploitation of the poorer classes of the city for 
purposes of greed, encountered as its opposers property owners 
who profess to be Christian and property owning clerical cor- 
porations, whose stately religious services on Sunday present 
the saddest possible contrast to the life of the poor and de- 

247 



'ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

graded denizens of their tenement properties, living under con- 
ditions that are a disgrace to our Christian civilization. 

Jesus, who was embodied Compassion, Beneficence and 
Truth, wrought for the redemption of man. He entered into 
our common lot. He was touched with the evils which the 
common people endured. He went in among the needy and 
the guilty. He loved to cure disease and to create a spirit 
which should banish poverty. Has Organized Christianity fol- 
lowed His example? Is it Christian in the Christ way? 

Speaking of religious conditions in England which apply 
equally well to the Ecclesiastical situation in this country, Dr. 
Fairbairn says: 

"We have in our midst outcast masses, multitudes who 
have lapsed into something worse than heathenism, into merest 
savagery, and have done so, not through lack of religious 
agencies, but simply through lack of religion, the absence or 
inaction of the higher Christian ideals in the mind, heart and 
conscience, of the body politic. 

"Of course the church can reckon up the sums spent on 
building churches, on its endowments and stipends, its found- 
ing and maintaining of religious institutions, hospitals, homes, 
etc., on its prosecution of missionary enterprise at home and 
abroad, and can appeal to the multitudes of beneficient agencies 
and benevolent institutions worked by the church, and may 
argue that these sums are so immense, as to prove the spirit 
of faith to be a living and zealous spirit, devoted and self- 
sacrificing. 

"But the destitution, depravity, utter and shamless godli- 
ness which exists in spite of all expenditures and efiforts of 
the church. What do these evils mean? 

"Organized Christianity to the degree that they do exist 
is not only imperfectly Christian, but really un-Christian ; so 
far as they are preventable, the church has been forgetful of 
its highest obligation, or unequal to their performance." 

Edwin Markham, in a recent poem entitled "The New Cen- 
tury," has this to say touching the present-day conditions of 
the poorer classes in our cities: 

248 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 

"Man has put harness on Leviathan 
And hooks in his incorrigible Jaws, 
And yet the perils of the street remain. 
Out of the whirlwind of the cities rise, 
Lean Hunger and the Worm of Misery, 
The heart-break and the cry of mortal tears." 

And he draws still another picture : 

"When I hear on our streets, the tragic stories of our 
sweat shops, of our child slaves, together with the wanton 
riot of luxury, in the money madness of our day — I sometimes 
feel as Shelley did, when with Leigh Hunt, he stood one night 
on London Bridge. With a quick gesture Shelly pointed to 
the great city, exclaiming : 'Hunt, Hell is what London is.' " 

And the Rev. Charles Stilzle, who is leading a movement 
designed to bring workingmen and the church into closer 
touch, utters these unutterably saddening words, concerning 
the poor thousands who in blank despair turn from a Chris- 
tianity, from which they have a right to expect relief from 
grinding oppression and the well-nigh intolerable conditions 
which obtain in the sweat shops and factories of our cities 
where they toil in hopeless drudgery, "chained to the wheel 
of labor by the fierce necessity for bread :" 

"To hold the cities," says Dr. Stilzle, "is to hold the Nation, 
and the church will keep on losing ground in the cities unless 
it sits down to honest study of these problems. More danger- 
ous than any opposing religious system is the churches' appar- 
ent failure to recognize the influence of the social and physical 
conditions which affect many of those whom we are seeking 
to win. These conditions have more to do with their aliena- 
tion from the church than is generally supposed. The dirty 
slum, the dark tenement, the unsanitary factory, the long hours 
of work, the lack of a living wage, the back-breaking labor, 
the want of money to pay doctors in time of sickness, the 
poor and insufficient food, the lack of leisure — all these weigh 
down the hearts of thousands and thousands in our great 
cities." 

"To such men and women, what does it matter whether 

249 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

the doors of the church are opened or closed? What do they 
care for flowery sermons or fine orations? What meaning 
can the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man have 
to them ? They ask, 'Where is God ?' and they say, 'What 
does man care ?' The hell in the future does not interest them. 
Their hell is here and now." 

In an age when it can be said of a large part of Chris- 
tian society, "every one loveth gifts and followeth after re- 
wards," and the cry of the oppressed is not heard even at the 
Temple altars, the denunciations of the prophet Isaiah have 
lost none of their force: 

"To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices . . . 

. . who hath required this at your hands Bring no 

more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me . . . 
. . Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth ; 

they are a trouble unto me ; I am weary to bear them 

When ye make many prayers I will not hear. Your hands 
are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean; put away the 
evil doings from before mine eyes ; cease to do evil, learn to 
do well; seek justice, set right the oppressor, relieve the op- 
pressed." 

III. 

Has the Christian world as represented by the five great 
Christian nations, England, Germany, Russia, France and the 
United States, fulfilled the vision of the prophet Isaiah of that 
peaceful reign when the nations of the earth 

"shall beat their swords into plowshares, and the spears into 
pruning hooks; when nation shall not lift up sword against 
nation, neither shall they learn war any more." (Isaiah 2-4). 

On the contrary, they have much more nearly fulfilled the 
vision of the militant prophet Joel : 

"Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men 
of war draw near; let them come up; beat your plowshares 
into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears." (Joel 
3-10). 

250 



ORGANIZED CBRISTIANITY 

Were Jesus Christ to appear as man among men, would 
he find that Christianity had replaced suspicion and force with 
reason and law ; that the world's wealth was being used for 
productive, humane and enlightened purposes? On the con- 
trary, would he not find the greater part of it squandered on 
ruinous and provocative preparations for war, preparations 
which involve an extravagant and wasteful expenditure of 
public money in the competitive construction of needless and 
useless: armaments, and impose unnecessary burdens of taxation 
that threaten to ultimately impoverish and exhaust the re- 
sources of the people, work ruin to the working men, desolation 
in; many homes and the degradation of the Christianity which 
He came to establish upon earth? 

The cost of armed peace or of maintaining what is in 
reality only a truce among nations, has grown to enormous 
proportions. European nations are said to have been looking 
to the United States to lead them in the arrest of war ex- 
penditures. But what is the spectacle which this country 
affords ? Instead of curtailing its outlays for war preparations 
and thus throwing its moral influence in the right direction, 
it has increased its expenditures at such a tremendous rate, as 
to outdo any other nation in the world. For the period of 
1890- 1 898 the average yearly rate of expenditure for the 
army and navy was $5i,ooo,ch30. The statistics show that the 
average yearly rate for the period of 1902- 1910 was $185,400,- 
000, an increase of 360 per cent. 

In eight years the American people have had to pay the 
enormous sum of $1,072,000,000 for war purposes, an amount 
which exceeds the entire budget of the United States for 1910, 
and is twice as much as the highest estimate of carrying out 
the deep water way projects, of. the country. 

The expenditures of the five leading nations in Christen- 
dom for the past fiscal year, on a peace basis reaches the tre- 
mendous and appalling total of $1,190,383,177. Nor is that all 

251 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

— Christian nations are already staggering under a load of 
debt which amounts to $34,000,000,000, on which the interest 
alone is nearly $1,000,000,000 annually. This indebtedness has 
been almost wholly incurred by outlays for war purposes. 
What the expenditures would be in case of a war in these days 
between any two or three of these nations staggers the imagi- 
nation. It would create a well-nigh intolerable burden of in- 
debtedness and impose years of the most crushing, unnecessary 
and ruinous taxation. The war with the Boers of South 
Africa cost England $1,000,000,000. What would a war be- 
tween England and Germany cost these two great nations? 

Already the existing social order is in grave danger. Class 
antagonism; the growth of socialism; the menace of revolu- 
tionary doctrines which are being spread throughout the 
world ; the strife between capital and labor ; the grinding taxa- 
tion of the poorer classes ; the enhanced cost of living, the 
growth of the privileged classes, the revolt against the em- 
ployment of so large a proportion of the resources of the na- 
tions in the maintenance of instrumentalities of destruction; 
these all seriously threaten the stability of national existence 
and presage the overthrow of governmental rule. 

Were the vast sums now expended in military preparations 
used for improving and conserving national resources in the 
interest of the common people, were it expended in bettering 
educational methods, in caring for the aged and the infirm, 
relieving congested population and in other work for the gen- 
eral benefit of mankind, the problems connected with the social 
and economic advancement of the working class could be easily 
solved. 

If the 477,000,000 nominal Christians who make up the 
membership and following of Christendom, as it exists to-day, 
were to compose their sectional dififerences ; were they bound 
together in the bonds of a true Christian unity, instead of be- 
ing separated into a multitude of more or less discordant sects ; 

252 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 

were they pledged to the promotion of that peace among men 
which the founder of Christianity came to bring to this world, 
can there be any doubt that a public sentiment would be 
created so powerful as speedily to put an end to this extrava- 
gant, useless, ruinous, and worse than criminal expenditure 
for maintaining an armed peace among so called Christian 
nations ? 

Why go to war? Why talk of it as an "instrument of 
policy?" Why must the war-dogs bay so vigorously? Why 
must there be conquest at the cost of a life and death struggle 
between the combatants ? Why should there be the outpouring 
of a nation's blood and treasure in frenzied conflict? Why 
must hate and passion, mad brutality and bloody carnage run 
riot? Is that the price great civilized Christian nations — Chris- 
tian in name at least — must pay for national existence and in- 
dustrial and commercial prosperity? War is neither Christian, 
nor wise, nor profitable. To violently and brutally disturb 
through armed conflict, the world's peace and the common 
life, the common interest, the common trade of civilized na- 
tions, finds no sanction in true statesmanship or prudent re- 
gard for the well being of the citizen and the state. 

But why talk of an utter lack of preparedness for war, 
when the truth is vast armaments are wholly unnecessary in 
our day, and cannot be relied upon to prevent war. If con- 
sistently carried out by the great nations there can be but one 
conclusion, the cost of armaments and the maintenance of 
nations on a war footing will become prohibitive, or else bank- 
rupt the civilized world. Instead of being a guarantee of 
peace, great armaments are a continual menace to peace. 

In the last ten years we have expended in this country, in 
preparations for war the sum of $2,192,036,585.20. What 
have we accomplished by this vast expenditure? Oflicial re- 
ports tell us that any large nation in Europe or in the Orient 

253 



AZTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

could successfully invade America, destroy the cities on the 
coast and paralyze our commerce. 

If with such an expenditure we are in such a helpless con- 
dition, as the advocates of militarism would have us believe, 
how much must the country expend to render ourselves secure 
against the most remote contingencies which might arise in 
case of war with a first-class nation ? Yet in spite of all this 
enormous outlay for war preparations, equal to 72 per cent, of 
the nation's yearly income, if we include the pension list, the 
eminent men whom we have, chosen to preside over the mighty 
question of national defense, distinctly and emphatically de- 
clare that we are alarmingly unprepared for attack by any for- 
eign power. Does this mean that the other 28 per cent, of our 
annual income must go in the same direction ? 

The fearful waste of accumulated capital involved in war 
and the increasing burden of taxation involved in being pre- 
pared for war, is becoming a most practical argument against 
war, since it is fast breaking down the ability of nations to 
carry the double burden. 

One thing is certain : there must be the growth of a truly 
international opinion which will make war a practical impossi- 
bility or else the increasing expenditures for war preparations 
will reach the breaking point and wars will not be carried on 
between nations for the simple reason that the nations them- 
selves have become bankrupt and are no longer able to wage 
successful warfare. 

Is organized — or shall we say disorganized — Christianity 
deserving of the name of Christian so long as this horrible 
spectre of militarism overshadows all the Christian countries 
of the world; so long as the emphasis is laid upon shot and 
shell instead of good will ; upon force instead of love.; upon 
brutal struggle for national supremacy instead of brotherhood ; 
upon destruction instead of justice? Is this a Christian age 
in any true sense when the finer things of life, when science, 

254 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 

culture ideals and all happy and joyous phases of human ex- 
perience are dominated by a rampant war spirit which keeps 
alive hatred, strife and jealousies between nations and lays 
intolerable burdens upon peoples who have no enemies in the 
world ? 

"Think of so-called Christian nations," says the Christian 
Work and Evangelist, ''going on to-day piling up huge warships 
by the half dozen or more a year, with which to destroy each 
other. What most impresses a Japanese or Chinese in his tour 
through Christian Europe as the most conspicuous product of 
our Christianity? Big guns. And all this the church could 
stop immediately were it Christian." 

But why this mad race for military and naval supremacy 
when there is no cloud on the sky of the world's international 
relations; when international trade and commerce is reaching 
out to all parts of the globe and self-interest is fast becoming 
the surest guarantee against war between nations. Already 
the world's annual commerce is measured by the enormous 
total of twenty-eight billion ($28,000,000,000) dollars, and 
there is scarce a limit to its expansion. In the face of this 
marvellous traffic between great industrial and commercial 
empires, who know no national boundaries and are rapidly 
binding peoples and nations together with chains of gold, 
belligerency between nations becomes suicidal. 

Why has organized Christianity after these nineteen cen- 
turies of professed allegiance to its founder, the "Prince of 
Peace," and whose followers are pledged to extend his reign 
over all the world, so little influence in staying this mad spirit 
of warlike preparations? Must the white- winged messengers 
of peace who shall come as the Evangel of a new era of inter- 
national amity or great "Comity of nations," have to stay their 
coming until they can be invested with the credentials of some 
outside organization or world-wide alliance, because Christian- 
ity has proved recreant to the trust committed to it? 

255 



'ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

IV. 

"How stands the notion of the Kingdom of God, in demo- 
cratic America, in the new world with its new standards of 
conduct?" asked the late Dr. Huntington at a meeting of the 
Federation of Church Clubs in Grace Church, New York City. 
This question he proceeded to answer in these words : "Very- 
much at a discount, we feel the impulse at first to reply. Peo- 
ple say that the church is outworn, and cannot solve the prob- 
lem which weighs so heavily on men's hearts; that it is taken 
up with controversies about the method of worship and 
wedded to tradition." 

Jesus Christ's method of spreading His gospel among men 
is contained in Luke's gospel ; His commission to the seventy 
whom he sent to prepare the way for his coming contained 

these words : "And into whatsoever city ye enter 

heal the sick therein and say unto them, the Kingdom of God 
is come nigh unto you." And it is recorded of the early 
Christians that they went forth and preached everywhere, the 
Lord working with them and confirming the word "with signs 
following." 

Into what city is organized Christianity preparing the way 
for the coming Master, even as He commanded the seventy? 
Why has the church lost its hold on the great mass of people ? 
Simply because it has no message for them after the manner 
of Jesus Christ's commission ; because its preaching is without 
practice, because "the signs following," which marked the 
first few centuries of the Christian Era are wanting; because 
its creeds are not followed with deeds that will demonstrate 
their verit}^ and vitality. It has practically ceased to function. 
Students of physiology know what happens to an organ that 
becomes useless. It dies of inanition. 

"One must experience a severe shock in going from the 
elaborate and exclusive forms of modern Christianity into 

256 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 

the presence of the Lord whom it professes to adore and fol- 
low. It is at first sight hard to discover the connection be- 
tween its multiplied machinery and His sublime simplicity, its 
emphasis upon ritual and His sole reliance upon the prophetic 
gift, its confidence in apostolic succession and His glorious 
trust in truth ; its redundant and exclusive ecclesiasticism and 
the Master's absolute immunity from this disease. 

"When one considers this Divine preacher, either in the 
humble meeting houses of His people, or in the fields of 
Galilee and the hillsides of Judea, notes the pure spirituality of 
His message and the interior splendor of His soul, one is ready 
to assert that the only hope of the proudly orthodox churches 
of the world is in ever deeper association with Him. In no 
other way would it seem to be possible that they should ever 
catch a glimpse of the things for which He had a divine con- 
cern, awake to the awful contrast that exists between the 
spirituality and simplicity of His cause and the mixed and 
multitudinous character of their own, and subordinate their 
idiosyncrasies to the universality and freedom of His kingr, 
dom." ^ 

Healing by spiritual means was one of the foundation 
stones of early Christianity. The exemplification of this orig- 
inal tenet by the Christian Science Church after twenty cen- 
turies and in an age of materialistic opinion, proves its re- 
markable vitality as an essential of the Christian religion. 

What, then, is the object lesson which the Christian Science 
movement is giving organized Christianity as to the present 
possibility of fulfilling the missionary directions which Jesus 
Christ gave to His disciples? Does it mean that the orthodox 
churches are destined to pass out of existence and that Chris- 
tian Science is to take their places? Does it not mean that 
Christianity will be compelled to return to its true and original 

^ Dr. George A. Gordon, Atlantic Monthly, April, 19 lo. 

257 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

functions, and to adopt such simple methods and forms as are 
more nearly in accord with the primitive Christianity of the 
New Testament ? 

Time was when the Christian religion stood for the mystic 
vision, for the sense of the Unseen, for communion with the 
Infinite Father of our spirits; when the market was outside; 
when the public assemblies were outside ; when the mechanism 
of social organization was outside, when it signified the com- 
munity "at prayer," the community ''practicing the presence 
of God," the community making that presence felt in the heal- 
ing and saving power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Is that ideal one which is being realized in the worship and 
works of the Christian Science Church? Is that Church a 
return not simply to the faith and worship, but to the healing 
ministry which characterized the early Christian Church, and 
which has been a lost function of the church for the past 
seventeen centuries? And if this be so, what is to be the 
future of the orthodox churches ? 



2S8 



11. 

ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY. 

Existing Conditions and Outlook. 

IN the following stirring passage the noted writer on "Church 
Unity," Dr. Charles A. Briggs, refers to the wonderful 
changes which are taking place in the scientific and the re- 
ligious worlds. All of these, to his mind, presage the coming 
in of a universal Christianity which will combine every essen- 
tial of that higher unity which he has labored so long to bring 
about : 

"The world has learned many things," says this writer. 
"We have new views of God's universe. We have new scien- 
tific methods. We have an entirely different psychology and 
philosophy. Our education is much more scientific, much more 
thorough, much more accurate, much more searching, much 
more comprehensive. All along the lines of life, institutions, 
dogmas, morals, new institutions are emerging, new questions 
pressing for solution ; the perspective is changed, the lights and 
shadows are differently distributed. We are in a state of 
enormous transition, changes are taking place whose results it 
is impossible to tell — reconstruction is in progress on the grand- 
est scale. Out of it all will spring, in God's own time, a re- 
juvenated, a reorganized, a truly universal Christianity, com- 
bining in a higher unity all that is true and real and worthy in 
the various sects which now divide the world."^ 

Broadly considered, are existing conditions in the religious 
world of to-day, and the outlook as to the future of organized 
Christianity such as to indicate an early fulfilment of the antici- 
pations to which Prof. Briggs has given expression? 

The average layman or church member is becoming more 
indifferent to ecclesiasticism. Generally speaking, neither 

^Church Unity, page 435. 

259 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

Christians nor worldlings attend the orthodox churches in any 
very great numbers, finding it unprofitable to do so. Sermon- 
izing has lost its hold upon the people. The religious con- 
ceptions of the church are too narrow, too shriveled up; there 
is too much class distinction. Religion in many cases is 
scarcely more than a by-product of human activity, good for 
Sunday, but of no practical value for the rest of the week. 
Christianity is sound enough at the core, but the organism is 
evidently wrong and needs remodeling. 

The church has gone daft on the subject of organization and 
machinery and has thus crushed the life out of what real re- 
ligion it has had. Even its preachers are weary of acting as 
puppets or the tools of a great ecclesiastic machine. 

"The breakdown of ecclesiasticism in Europe is complete," 
says the Rev. Charles F. Aked, in a recent sermon at the Fifth 
Avenue Baptist Church. 

"The churches are standing, but the people are out of them, 
and if the people are there the old spirit is gone. Ecclesias- 
ticism is but an empty shell, and anyone who knows France out- 
side of Paris as I know it knows that this is true. Atheist 
France of to-day is the answer to ecclesiastical France of yes- 
terday. It is the same in Italy, Spain and elsewhere. 

"The growth of Socialism is another thing that shows the 
spirit of Europe. Socialism, as an economic doctrine, is to be 
reprobated. But if you were born in modern Europe you, too, 
would have been Socialists and revolutionists. International 
Socialism, as Europe knows it, is a movement towards democ- 
racy and liberty. Europe is ready for the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ. The old gods have fallen down." 

The great mass of people, Jews and Christian, are in an 
indifferent mood as to matters of religion; old dogmas and 
ancient institutions have lost their hold and are tottering to a 
fall. Passive and drifting, they await the call of a new leader. 
The need of constructive religious thought was never more 
imperative than at the present time. 

"The Presbyterian Church is not orthodox, judged by its 

260 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 

own standards," says Dr. Briggs; "it is drifting towards an 
unknown and mysterious future." And the orthodoxy of the 
Congregational Church is not less in question if we accept the 
recent endeavor of a prominent New Haven church of this 
denomination to make its creed more conformable to the views 
of the modern thinking world. Most of the theology, the old- 
time creeds and dogmas of organized Christianity have gone to 
the melting pot. It must be evident to anyone who knows the 
currents of thought which have been working during our cen- 
tury, and which are now working still more powerfully, that 
in a very few years, as Dr. Briggs has significantly remarked, 
"not a single Protestant Confession of Faith or Catechism will 
retain binding authority in any denomination." 

A prominent Episcopal church divine, who, during the past 
two years has had occasion to meet a large number of clergy- 
men of all denominations, larger, in fact, than he had met dur- 
ing the preceding fifteen years of his ministry, propounded to 
a great many of these gentlemen this question : "Do you look 
forward to any great future for your church in this country ?" 
The answer he received, with few exceptions, was this: "I 
can see no future for my church, but I believe there is a future 
for Christianity."^ 

The organized Christian church, and the position it now 
occupies, has experienced a great change. Outwardly the 
manifestation of this change is seen in the immense decline in 
church attendance; inwardly the manifestation is seen in the 
loss of authority over its followers. 

No one will deny that in a certain sense the church is 
strong, considered as an organized institution. It is possessed 
of much property ; it has fine buildings, and an imposing ritual ; 
it receives and disburses large sums of money annually in the 
founding and maintaining of religious institutions. It has elo- 
quent preachers in its pulpits and artistic music in its choirs. 

^Dr. Ellwood Worcester, in "Religion and Medicine." 

261 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

Its charitable work is extensive; it spends a large amount of 
money in prosecuting its missionary work at home and abroad ; 
it supports a multitude of beneficent agencies. Its educational, 
institutional and social settlement work are all good, so far as 
they go. But the painful fact remains that it could possess, 
be, and do all this quite as well were organized Christianity 
merely an ethical or philanthropic institution, or known under 
any other name or organization, pagan as well as Christian. 

People in constantly growing numbers are coming to believe 
less and less in the necessity of uniting with the orthodox 
church as essential to personal salvation. Such a step in these 
days carries no particular weight of responsibility and demands 
no radical change of life. Indeed we may seriously question 
whether a majority of real believers, who by the grace of God 
constitute the true, invisible Church of God, are within or with- 
out the organized churches of Christendom. 

The present position of organized Christianity is without 
parallel in the ecclesiastical history of the world. Its career 
is ended as a heavenly messenger; its spiritual power is gone. 
If it be not a heavenly messenger, the accuser rather than the 
friend of the world, if it be powerless to prove its faith by its 
works, it is nothing. 

III. 

What is organized Christianity doing in the face of the 
multiplied evidences of moral disease and moral breakdown in 
the business world, and in the realm of politics with which the 
State and Nation are confronted? 

Why does it continue to hide its head in the presence of our 
high finance which is nothing more than low-down stealing; 
why hesitate to thunder forth its protests against the wrong- 
doing of men of great power who buy legislators and manip- 
ulate laws and law-makers? What is it doing to save this 

262 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 

Commonwealth from the bhghting effects of this unholy al- 
liance between business and politics? 

"In our own State," says the Rev. Dr. Stephen S. Wise, of 
the Free Synagogue, "we have the spectacle of a Governor who 
up to this hour has refused to fight the great fight, and who 
will lose whosoever wins." "What support," he inquires, "are 
we giving to that small band of men in the legislative halls of 
our State who are standing out like heroes in order to avert the 
threatened disgrace which party tyranny is seeking to inflict 
upon us ? On the other hand, what condemnation do we visit 
upon the heads of those masters of coercion and intimidation, 
brutally bent upon battering down a brave and noble minority 
who so love their party that they loathe its shame? 

Must organized Christianity remain silent when great indus- 
trial corporations perpetrate colossal frauds against the gov- 
ernment ; must it meekly accept the legal outcome of the frauds 
which eventuates in the incarceration in our penitentiaries of a 
number of miserable underlings while the masters and authors 
of this infamy go unwhipped of justice? 

Has organized Christianity lost all capacity for high resent- 
ment? Must it continue to palliate or excuse the moral turpi- 
tude of men in high position convicted of grave social or anti- 
social crimes ? Has it lost its power or courage to drive pride 
and mammon worship out of its temples, or to give efficient 
support to the morally clean, strong and brave men and the 
group of honest newspapers and periodicals who are fighting 
the battle for civic righteousness and the interests of the many 
against the greed and the industrial oppression of the few? 

The end of this moral disease and breakdown in state and 
nation and municipality must come through the determined 
leadership of the religious and moral forces of the nation. 
Why is organized Christianity not more ready to assume the 
leadership of these forces? Why must it continue supinely in- 
different to the existence and persistence of a social and indus- 
trial order which is based upon iniquity and unrighteousness ? 

263 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

Will it continue to excuse itself by building a majestic tem- 
ple for the sensuous worship of the God of Heaven, while it 
suffers His sons and daughters to rot and perish in death-deal- 
ing tenements to which they are doomed by the present system 
of injustice — a system which reflects the selfishness and the 
godlessness of a so-called Christian nation whose religion is 
made up of profession rather than practice. Must the spirit of 
Christian unity and of Christian co-operation die out of evan- 
gelical Christianity, leaving its ecclesiastical systems a mere 
shell on the verge of collapse? 

**We complain of Christianity," said a speaker at a meeting 
of delegates to the Hebrew Council held recently in the Temple 
Emanu-El, ''because during twenty centuries of its civilization 
the worship of God has estranged the love of man. More 
crimes have been committed in the name of religion, more tor- 
ture, misery and oppression have sprung from religious fanati- 
cism than from all other human agencies combined. The sit- 
uation of the Jew in Russia is no longer a Russian infamy, 
but a world scandal for which modern civilization must be 
haled before the tribunal of conscience. It is not a Jewish' 
question at all — it is a question of humanity and it ought to be 
a Christian question, if Christianity means what we are told 
it does." 

Is this scathing indictment one which the facts support? Is 
organized Christianity really Christian in any true sense? If 
it has failed to do mighty battle for God and oppressed human- 
ity is it because its divisions have sapped and destroyed its 
effectiveness as a moral agency in the world ; is it because it is 
overburdened with ecclesiastical systems which, instead of 
being a source of organized power, are an element of weakness 
in the body politic and a sign of decadence? 

The message of the Son of Man to the Angel of the Church 
of the Laocedians has lost none of its significance in the lapse 
of centuries. Has it no meaning in this day and age for a 
sectarian Christianity which has so signally failed to realize the 

264 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 

religious ideals of the great Founder of the Qiristian religion, 
or successfully to maintain its claims as an authoritative re- 
ligious institution? 

"I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I 
would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art luke- 
warm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my 
mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with 
goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou 
are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: 
I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou 
mayest be rich, and white raiment, that thou mayest be 
clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; 
and anoint thine eyes with eye- salve that thou mayest see." 
(Rev. Ill, 14-18.) 

Christianity and Judaism. 

'According to a prominent German-Jewish savant in a re- 
cent article in the ludische Zeitschrift, "Christianity is at 
present engaged in the process of self-dissolution ; it is return- 
ing to Judaism, whence it sprang," Referring to the original 
Christianity of Jesus, as preached by Prof. Harnack in his 
monumental work, "The Essence of Christianity," another 
prominent Jewish thinker finds warrant for a significant state- 
ment to the effect that Prof. Harnack has, by the strictest of 
historical criticism, eliminated from real and original Chris- 
tianity all those features which Jewish teachers have found 
objectionable in the Christian system. On the other hand, a 
leading German university professor contends that the world- 
mission of Judaism is to absorb Christianity ; that the mission 
of Christianity has been to prepare the world for the propa- 
ganda of a higher and spiritualized Judaism. He further in- 
sists that the time has come for Judaism with its special mis- 
sion to supplant Christianity. But, says Mission-director Dr. 
Biding of Berlin: 

"The radical Jew is no more representative of Judaism than 

265 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

the radical Christian is of Christianity. The approach of the 
two is only along lines of general religious speculation which 
has deserted both historic Christianity and historic Judaism. 
Real Christianity is showing not the slightest signs of denying 
its identity and its raison d'etre. It will never permit itself to 
be absorbed by Judaism." 

If we turn to the monotheism of historic Judaism, we are 
confronted with a peculiar situation. While the God of the 
Hebrew religion is acknowledged to be the God of the whole 
earth, yet by reason of tribal statutes and enactments, he is 
constituted the God of the Hebrew nation only. And by mak- 
ing the law which they have formulated the law of God, a dis- 
tinction between Jew and Gentile worlds has been created, 
hence all those who have not the Jewish law are of necessity 
outside the pale of the Jewish church. It is not enough that 
other people are God's children: to share in His grace and 
covenant they must embrace the Jewish religion. The God who 
is the God of all the nations thus becomes in an especial sense 
the God of Israel, the Holy One of their tribe. Jehovah is 
pre-eminently their God and they are His chosen people, en- 
titled to fix the terms on which the Gentiles shall participate 
in His grace. 

Out of this tribal history, as will be readily seen, has grown 
the tendency of the Jewish people to restrict God to a particular 
place or definite temple. His ministry to a specific priesthood, 
His worship to special forms and His servants to a peculiar 
people. And this tendency to restrict the worship of God and 
the enjoyment of God's blessings to a particular church, has 
not died out with the ages. It finds its manifestation in the 
tenacity with which organized Christianity holds to its dogmas 
and creeds and institutions, its priesthood, apostolic succession, 
its symbols and sacraments declared to be the conditions of 
God's presence and the media of grace. 

The more the Jewish people make the law they have enacted 

266 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 

the law of God, the less can they allow those who have not this 
law any share in their God. 

"By building the temple they locaHzed the worship of Him 
who knew no place ; by. drawing tighter the terms of the cov- 
enant, they confined to themselves the Father who loves every 
people ; by forming an hereditary priesthood they attached 
His service to one family; by elaborating their ceremonies, 
they shut religion within the ritual which they alone possessed, 
though even here the ethical sovereignty which could not be 
denied to Jehovah made Him broader than their law."^ 

It is one of the supreme ironies of history that the last 
century in which the Jewish people existed as a nation was 
also the period of their most frenzied particularism. "In the 
heated imagination of the tribe the vessel became more in- 
finitely precious than the treasure it carried." 

"The pathos of Israel's position," declares Dr. Fairbaim, 
"lies in their invincible devotion to the national forms of a 
belief, which, in order that it might reaHze itself and become 
man's, required to lose all trace of its national and tribal his- 
tory and to live in a medium as universal as its nature and 
function." And this impossibility of either surrendering or 
realizing his religious ideal, as Dr. Fairbairn observes, "is the 
tragedy in the religious history of the Jewish people."- 

And what does a diagnosis of Jewish religious conditions 
reveal? Does it not indicate indifference, inertness, disloyalty, 
lack of spiritual integrity ? Are these not among the prominent 
symptoms of present-day Jew^ish life. Are these not all the 
more complicated from the revival of an old bitterness which 
does Judaism little honor? And has not this bitterness grown 
out of an attempted capitalization of what the Russian Jew 
imagines to be ill-will and unfriendliness toward him by his 
earlier and more successful brother, the American Jew of the 
German immigration movement? 

^Philosophy of the Christian Religion, page 252. 
^The Philosophy of the Christian Religion, page 245. 

267 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

The disintegration of Judaism is no less pronounced than 
that of organized Christianity; nor is the inmost spirit of 
Judaism any more regnant to-day in the lives of Jewish sons 
and daughters than is the spirit and truth of Christ regnant in 
the hearts of the great mass of professed adherents of organ- 
ized Christianity. 

"We need a reformation of the Jew," says the Rev. Dr. 
Stephen S. Wise, a prominent rabbi of the Jewish church, and 
the same may be truly said of many an orthodox Christian, 
"not because he is orthodox, not because he is reform, but be- 
cause he is neither ; because in a large part he is unattached and 
drifting rudderless; because he is threatened with the gravest 
perils that can befall a people, the loss of religion and the loss 
of moral ideas." 

The present disputes among the supporters and opponents 
of reformed Judaism come at a time when Israel sadly needs 
harmony instead of discord and dissension. 

"It is much to be regretted," continues Dr. Wise, "that the 
counter-reformation has come into being at a time when the 
united councils of Israel are more imperatively needed than 
they have been for many years. By it we are launched upon a 
sea of strife and discord at a time when Israel needs a unifying, 
statesmanlike leadership, and a well disciplined, loyal follow- 
ing. If the counter-reformation should prevail in the Jewish 
Cathedral of New York, it were no victory for conservatism, 
for the Temple Emanu-El has not for many years held the 
leadership of the reform movement. A synagogue, however 
empty, and a cemetery, however full, do not make a temple 
of the living God, nor of Hving men. It may be named a 
reform temple only by those who unjustly regard reform and 
indifference as interchangeable terms." 

The distinctively religious work of historic Judaism, as 
Judaism, has been done. The fulfilment of its providential 
mission is written large on the pages of history. Concurrently 
with the passing of the Protestant age is the passing of historic 
Judaism. Both alike presage the coming of a new religious 

268 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 

order that will embody the ideal Christianity of Jesus Christ, 
seeing which the world might believe. 

Christian Science Evangelism. 

The supreme and pre-eminent achievement of Jesus Christ 
was to emancipate and to embody the universal idea of the 
Hebrew religion in the Christian religion, a religion which is 
at once the most universal and missionary religion on the face 
of the earth. 

As Jesus taught it, Christianity was not a creed, a code of 
ceremonies, nor a special gift from a ritualistic Jehovah. It 
was a religion of works. These works confirmed prophecy and 
explained the so-called miracles of former ages as natural 
proofs of the divine power. By them Jesus authenticated His 
claim to the Messiahship, maintained His mission, and taught 
His followers that His religion has a divine Principle, which 
will both heal the sick and save the sinful. He claimed no in- 
telligence, action or life apart from God. 

Jewish teachers now profess to find in the original Chris- 
tianity of Jesus Christ an elimination of those features which 
have heretofore been regarded as objectionable in the Chris- 
tian system. Hence the significance of the work which the 
Christian Science Church is doing to restore primitive Chris- 
tianity to the world and which it is accomplishing more suc- 
cessfully than any other religious body in existence. The pro- 
gress of this movement points unmistakably to the ushering in 
of an era of true Christian unity among Jesus' followers, so 
comprehensive as to include not only Christians of every de- 
nomination and of every land, but also the Jew and Gentile of 
every race. 

The central dogma of the Christian Science Church is the 
central dogma of the Jewish Church ; it is the central dogma of 
the Christian religion: "Hear, O Israel! The Lord thy God 
is one Lord ; thou shall have no other gods before Me." 

269 



"ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

The Christian Science tenets and demonstration of healing 
and the saving power of Jesus' gospel furnish a platform of 
faith and work upon which Jew and Christian may, and do, 
stand together in true religious fellowship. It rejects all the 
limitations of family, tribal or national religion. It is not 
bound to any creed or institution. 

"Of old," writes Mrs. Eddy, "the Jews put to death the 
Galilean Prophet, the best Christian on earth, for the truth 
He spoke and demonstrated, while to-day Jew and Christian 
can unite in doctrine and demonstration on the very basis of 
Jesus' words and works. The Jew believes that the Messiah or 
Christ has not yet come; the Christian believes that Christ is 
God. Here Christian Science intervenes, explains these doc- 
trinal points, cancels the disagreement, and settles the ques- 
tion. Christ, as the true spiritual idea, is the ideal of God now 
and forever, here and everywhere. The Jew who believes in 
the First Commandment is a monotheist ; he has one omni- 
potent God. Thus the Jew unites with the Christian's doctrine 
that God is come and is present now and forever. The Chris- 
tian who believes in the First Commandment is a monotheist. 
Thus he virtually unites with the Jew's belief in one God, and 
recognizes that Jesus Christ is not God, as Jesus Himself de- 
clared, but is the Son of God. This declaration of Jesus under- 
stood, conflicts not at all with another of His sayings : T and 
My Father are one' — that is, one in quality, not quantity. As 
a drop of water is one with the ocean, a ray of light one with 
the sun, even so God and Man, Father and Son, are one in 
being. The Scripture reads — For in Him we live, and move, 
and have our being."^ 

Christian Science evangelism is the evangelism of the New 
Testament ; it is the evangeHsm of the religion of Jesus Christ 
— in other words — primitive Christianity. It illustrates and 
exemplifies by practical demonstration the power of the Gospel 
of Christ to break the fetters which have held mankind in 
bondage to sin, disease and death. 

The tendency of thought in the present century is away 

^Science and Health, page 361 

270 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 

from the so-called conservative, dogmatic theology, with its 
radical elaboration of speculative dogma. It is towards the 
person and work of Jesus Christ. 

"The discovery of the nineteenth century is the discovery of 
Jesus Christ," says a prominent divine of the Episcopal church. 
That discovery has been made prominent by a New England 
woman who has formulated Jesus' teachings in the Christian 
Science Text-book and embodied Jesus' spirit and heaHng 
power in a religious movement which is doing more to rein- 
state primitive Christianity and restore its lost element of 
healing than any other religious denomination in Christendom. 
"Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures," has made 
the Bible a new book ; its spiritual interpretation of the Scrip- 
tures has quickened the religious faith and lives of many 
thousands all over the world and made practical to this age 
the establishment of a church which is demonstrating the 
quickening, healing power of the Gospel of Christ as in apos- 
toHc times. 

The message and mission of Christian Science is as wide as 
humanity; it fires the consciousness of men with the enthus- 
iasm and saving power of early Christianity. For war it 
would substitute peace; for the competition that blights and 
degrades, the co-operation that quickens and ennobles. Chris- 
tian Science unfolds the principles upon which the true broth- 
erhood of man is based. In place of the extremes of luxury 
and want characteristic of our present social state, it teaches 
a more generous and equal distribution of means and re- 
sources. It would assure to every human being upon the face 
of the earth the opportunity to make the most of the faculties 
and opportunities which a beneficent Creator has given him. 

Christian Science presents a new vision of salvation; it 
exalts the possibilities of love and service and points the way 
to a grand re-birth of society ; to the elimination of the wrongs 
and the amelioration of the evils of our social state; to the 

271 



'ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

re-invigoration of the faith of Christendom and the reappear- 
ance of the Christianity which heals the sick, comforts the 
sorrowing, saves the sinful, destroys error and introduces the 
universal reign of brotherhood and love. 



272 



III. 

CHURCH UNITY — IS IT ATTAINABLE? 

WILL Protestantism pass out of existence or continue to 
remain a cluster of rival orthodoxies disowning and 
repelling each other ? Or is there a reasonable expectation that 
these constituent parts will become reconciled to each other, 
or to the Roman Catholic Church ? Will the discords, divisions 
and controversies of organized Christendom give place to the 
peace and concord of a Christianity patterned after the Christ- 
ideals and possessed of the healing power of the early Chris- 
tian Church? 

To answer these questions we must remember that we are 
not dealing with causes but facing conditions as they actually 
exist. We are not called upon to consider the speculations of 
dogmatic theologians, but stubborn facts in the Christian 
world. We are not to meet mere theories, but a Christianity 
divided and decadent on its organized or institutional side, a 
Christianity whose rehabilitation and unity as the one uni- 
versal Church of Christ is the great consummation devoutly 
to be desired. 

To have a church is not the same thing as to have a re- 
ligion. Church buildings and church services held therein are 
but an imperfect mode of expression of the Christian fellow- 
ship which links together all who are actuated by love for 
God and love for their fellowmen. They are but type and 
symbol of the universal Christian church. The creative idea 
is the religion. The church is the created or corporate form of 
worship and service, an organized institution which must agree 
with the religion, whose interpreter, agent or medium for its 
realization it must be. 

Dr. Newman Smyth, writing on the subject of "Passing 

273 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

Protestantism and Coming Catholicism," declares the problem 
of church unity to be one of "visibility," having as its starting 
point of Christian faith an acknowledgment of the fact that 
we all do belong to the one church of Christ, that the body of 
Christ is neither church uniformity nor church union. And as 
Bishop Brewster, of Connecticut, truly says : "Unity means 
oneness; union is the binding together of things that are not 
one. Unity is inward and essential. Union is mechanical ; it 
is put together. The endeavor after Christian union may 
achieve alliances and federations, and still is perpetuated actual 
separation.^ 

What we have to consider is the possibility of the restora- 
tion to Christendom of that visible church unity which first 
took form and found its embodiment in the early Christian or 
Apostolic Church ; a unity maintained unbroken by the Roman 
Catholic Church until the Protestant reformation of the six- 
teenth century. 

One of the most prominent advocates of Church unity, the 
Rev. Dr. Charles A. Briggs, has been for the past twenty-five 
years deeply interested in the subject and has earnestly la- 
bored in its behalf. During that time he has made numerous 
addresses on the subject before Roman Catholics in America, 
France and Rome, and also before Protestant bodies. He has 
written a large number of articles for reviews, magazines and 
journals of various kinds, both in this country and abroad. In 
a recent volume, "Church Unity," he has gathered in book 
form the results of his labors. There is no question as to his 
ripe scholarship ; and, as may be expected, the volume con- 
tains a great amount of valuable material. The unity which 
he sees is not that of divided Protestantism only, but a larger 
union, large enough to embrace such diverse elements as the 
Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern churches and the Church 
of England. 

^ "The Catholic Idea of the Church," Page 28. 

274 



CHURCH UNITY— IS IT ATTAINABLE? 

Dr. E. S. Drown, in a recent review of this volume holds 
that the fundamental question as to Church unity relates to 
the nature and constitution of the Christian Church, "as a 
permanent organism in society." While this reviewer does 
not consider that Dr. Briggs has given that phase of the sub- 
ject satisfactory treatment, he is obliged to admit that the solu- 
tion of the problem is extremely difficult. Dr. Briggs has well 
said that "Christian Irenics," which aims to reconcile and or- 
ganize the discordant elements of Christianity in peace and 
concord in the unity of Christ's Church, demands first of all, 
a courageous quest for truth, and courage to rise above the 
prejudices of denominational or scholastic theology. 

There is no question as to the quality of the courage re- 
quired to face without quailing, the task of bringing together 
over two hundred odd parties, churches, or more or less war- 
ring sects, that for centuries have found it impossible to com- 
pass their religious differences or to agree upon a basis of 
uniformity, either in doctrine, ritual or polity. 

Within any religious denomination, it is safe to say, there 
is more dissatisfaction and less agreement than there is among 
political parties which make no profession of Christian faith 
or fellowship. The tragedy of it is that millions of money 
are given away yearly by churchmen to be spent in ways that 
really erect barriers to church progress and tend to perpetuate 
conditions which make religious living almost impossible. 

Christendom, as it stands to-day, exemplifies neither church 
unity nor a spirit of Christian unity. In New York City there 
are no less than sixty-five Christian bodies that use the same 
Bible, profess allegiance to the same God, and yet are not in 
agreement as to what the Bible teaches. They differ as to 
doctrine, ordinances and modes of worship. Each church 
claims the right to work and worship according to its own 
conscience and judgment and until very recently has denied 
that right to its neighbor. 

275 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

Church unity involves coalescence, in place of the present 
plurality of Christian denominations ; it involves not only geo- 
graphical as well as doctrinal unity, but uniformity in church 
polity and allegiance to a fixed form of ecclesiastical organiza- 
tion, all of which will of necessity call for an abandonment of 
doctrinal beliefs and religious methods held by some of the 
most powerful denominations of Christendom as fundamental 
to the Christian church. 

Church unity has to do with the Protestant and the Roman 
Catholic churches in their organized or institutional forms, 
varied and differing orders of worship, ritual, liturgies and 
discipline, ceremonies and sacraments; its priesthood and 
sacred times; its creeds, confessions of faith, decrees, articles, 
catechism, etc. These, while framed to define the differences, 
have served to emphasize the discords of Christendom, and too 
often, they show evidences of human passion and strife, the 
false use of Scripture and history, and improper methods of 
argumentation. 

Church unity deals with different types and parties within 
the church ; with a great variety and diversity of ecclesiastical 
organizations independent of, indifferent, and, in many cases, 
hostile to each other. It finds Christianity enveloped in a noisy 
and confusing dissensus and a dreary mist of prejudice, mis- 
interpretation and misunderstanding, and is confronted by a 
Christian world in a chaos of discordant elements and 
theologies. Out of this chaos emerges the alternative of sub- 
mission to an Infallible Pontiff. It encounters denominational 
partizanship and sectarian bigotry ; it meets opposition from 
dogmaticians and ecclesiastics and scholastic schools, which 
identify Christianity with their sect or party and regard their 
own church as the one church of Apostolic descent, of con- 
tinuous life, of supernatural endowment and divine authority. 
It has to face reactionaries and conservatives and schools of 
Polemic theology which vigorously oppose revision of de- 

276 



CHURCH UNITY— IS IT ATTAINABLE? 

nominational standards and any kind of new dogmatic state- 
ment, and which resist with zeal and determination new meth- 
ods, statements, doctrines, in fact, any change in the old order, 
as an overturning of the Christian faith. Having attained a 
final knowledge of the truth, they have nothing more to learn 
from the Bible, the Church or the progress of civilization in 
the world. 

Primitive Christianity was united in one church and fused 
together in the fires of persecution and martyrdom. But for 
past centuries the different members of the Christian family 
have been unable to agree among themselves. Furthermore, 
to secure the unity of Christendom as a whole, involves not 
merely a reunion of the warring sects composing Protestantism 
but reunion or reconciliation with Rome. Here we find a 
situation which might well appall the most ardent and stout- 
hearted worker in the cause of church unity. The Episcopal 
Church is divided over the question of the historical episco- 
pate; the Presbyterian Church is no better agreed as to the 
status of the historical presbyter. The Greek Church will not 
agree with the Roman; neither will the Roman Church agree 
with the Anglican. The Presbyterians, Methodists, Congre- 
gationalists, and Lutherans cannot accept the Anglo-Catholic 
theory of the episcopate; and the Anglo-Catholics have yet to 
conquer other parties in the Episcopal Church before they can 
overcome the hosts of non-episcopal churches which are unani- 
mously against them. 

The claims of the Episcopal Church as to the historic episco- 
pate include the following: ist, that the divine right of in- 
stitution belongs to Jesus and the Apostles ; 2nd, that its Dio- 
cesan Bishops are the successors of the Apostles ; 3rd, that no 
valid ministry exists except by ordination of Bishops, a func- 
tion which has in it a special grace ; 4th, that Diocesan Bishops 
have divine authority to rule the church. These broad and 
sweeping claims are not likely ever to be recognized by other 

277 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

denominations nor to be renounced by the Episcopal Church. 
Hence the reunion of Christendom on the basis of such claims 
is very remote, particularly as these claims are associated with 
the tyranny and the abuses which the church has received at 
the hands of the Diocesan Bishops. 

To get the Presbyterin Church to agree that the Bishops 
have exclusive divine right to transmit the divine order would 
be a well nigh impossible task. Presbyterians would not be will- 
ing to agree to theories of higher orders associated with pre- 
rogative, pride, ambition, tyranny and despotism. Apart from 
this fact is the further fact that there is actually more tyranny 
in Presbyterianism and modern Congregationalism than there 
is in the historic Episcopate. 

Those who are laboring for church unity have to deal with 
religious denominations which continue a policy that excludes 
all who will not subscribe to provincial conditions of member- 
ship. The proposed union of the institutional life of the 
church finds a Lord's table "reserved for Baptists." It en- 
counters a tendency to suspect a man of impiety because he 
cannot be a Methodist and use the religious exercises of cer- 
tain evangelists, or to regard as a heretic one who will not 
subscribe to a dogma held by provincial Presbyterianism. The 
refusal of a ceremony peculiar to Anglo-Catholics is adjudged 
to be schismatic; the failure to submit to the jurisdiction of 
the Roman Church, so serious a crime as to destroy all hope 
of salvation. 

Church unity involves the task of reconciling two chief 
religious types, one valuing ceremony, artistic accessories, hu- 
man organization and interventions, and conceiving of a spe- 
cial power miraculuously transmitted by the imposition of 
hands ; the other dispensing with adventitious aids, seeking to 
worship neither in temple nor in mountains but directly "'in 
Spirit and in Truth," the Holy Spirit being accessible to all. 

Church unity encounters what is termed the Apostolic 

278 



CHURCH UNITY— IS IT ATTAINABLE? 

view, which regards the church as God's vicegerent upon earth, 
and its priests as possessing a power denied not only to lay- 
men but even to ministers of all other denominations. But 
the branches of the Catholic and the Apostolic churches do not 
agree among themselves as to the authentic channels of this 
mysterious influence. 

To the Roman, the Anglican Catholic is a layman, even 
though he be a prelate. To the Anglican, the question of the 
recognition or non-recognition of Anglican orders is something 
said to have been decided, like a move in a game, or in party 
politics, after private discussion as to which course was best 
calculated to benefit one side and to damage the other. "The 
subject,'* says Sir Oliver Lodge, "appears to be eminently fitted 
for such treatment." The church jealously guards its own 
rites and privileges and denies real apostolic authority to all 
save those whom it has itself ordained and to that extent 
claims a monopoly of the Grace of God. 

Recently the Episcopal Church in America by an almost 
unanimous action of its ministry appealed to the House of 
Bishops for a ruling that would exclude from its pulpits all 
other "so-called" Christians because "separated from the unity 
of God's church." Their intrusion is pronounced as "con- 
trary to the fundamental and divine constitution of Christ's 
Holy Catholic Church." This is only one indication that that 
intolerance which has been the bane of Christianity for cen- 
turies has not yet died out. 

The task which the workers for church unity must face 
is a tremendous one. It involves not only a compromise of 
religious belief or what is termed orthodox doctrine; but sub- 
mission to one supreme jurisdiction. It necessitates an agree- 
ment in what constitutes the validity of minsterial orders, in 
discipline and ritual ; in geographical unity as the one Catholic 
or Universal Church; in a historic unity based on apostolic 
succession; in the acceptance of the executive function of the 

279 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

historical Episcopate and the modes and forms of ecclesias- 
tical organization. Concerning all these matters the past is a 
record of dissension and discord; the present offers little or 
no hope of a reversal of the past experience of the church. 

Undoubtedly Dr. Brown is right in declaring that the prob- 
lem is one that concerns itself with the nature and constitution 
of the church as a permanent organism in society or as to the 
forms in which the Christian faith can best be presented to our 
age. But in what direction shall we look for the solution of 
this problem? 

Is the Apostolic Church to be erected into the perfect and 
permanent model which all future Christian churches ought to 
copy and reproduce, or are we to take the Christian Church 
of later centuries as representative of what Christianity stands 
for? If the former, how shall the model be defined; if the 
latter, shall it be the Roman Catholic Church or must we turn 
to Protestantism? If church unity involves a question of 
polity, shall it be the polity of Rome or Geneva, or that of 
the AngHcan or the Independent churches? Shall it be Papal, 
Episcopal or Presbyterian polity, or shall the political system 
of church government be Monarchial, Aristocratical or Re- 
publican? How shall we dispose of the question as to the 
validity of minsterial orders? Shall the Presbyterian con- 
ception be held that the church consists of the body of the 
members and that the ministry holds no powers except those 
which are delegated to it from the church at large? Or shall 
the claim be accepted that the Roman Church ministry or 
priesthood is in possession of special powers and graces which 
the laity receive only by means of the ministry ; that Rome has 
sole authority, by the exercise of which the Protestant Bishops 
of the Church of England were deposed by the Roman Church 
and their authority to ordain, and have never since been recog- 
nized by the Roman Church? Which of the different types 
or parties composing Christendom most fully represents the 

280 



CHURCH UNITY— IS IT ATTAINABLE? 

ideal Church of Christ as to doctrine, administration, disci- 
pHne and ritual? Which is the most able to create order, to 
exercise and develop the noblest life, or in other words, is most 
truly Catholic? 

Here the Roman Catholic Church asserts its claims to pre- 
eminence. It is the heir by unbroken descent to the Catholic 
Church of the second century. It maintains its unity with the 
Apostles by historic succession, a unity which has remained 
unbroken throughout the centuries. It claims to be the one 
Church of Christ, instituted, governed and inspired by God, 
secured from the moment of creation till now in continuous 
being and activity by the orders, instruments, symbols, and 
sacraments, that are the conditions of God's presence and the 
media of God's grace. 

Episcopalianism, on the other hand, insists upon its claims 
to Apostolic succession and the validity of its orders. It holds 
tenaciously to the principle that as the one Church of Christ 
it possesses the divine mission for man's salvation; and seeks 
to exclude all other so-called Christians from its pulpits, be- 
cause "separated from the unity of God's Church." 

The conclusion arrived at by Dr. Briggs, is, that the path- 
way to reunion is through a constitutional papacy. But the 
Roman policy is already one of unlimited jurisdiction and ab- 
solute submission, and as Dr. Briggs is forced to admit, the 
question is not the jurisdiction of the Pope, but the jurisdiction 
of the Curia, of the Black Pope, and the Red Pope, and the 
little popes of every color and shape. These administer the 
affairs of the church with an arbitrariness and tyranny that the 
popes themselves, owing to their more serious responsibilities, 
would not think of doing. These lesser dignitaries have prac- 
tically substituted themselves for the person of the Pontiff and 
are clamorously forcing their will upon the church. Not only 
so, but the Curia is antiquated in its methods as well as its 
organization which have nothing to do with the divine consti- 

281 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

tution of the church. It is well within the authority of the 
Pope to transform these administrations and methods, mod- 
ernize them and make them more efficient. But thus far the 
Pope is the creature rather than the ruler of the counsellors 
who compose the Curia. 

According to Archbishop Ireland's views of the office, "The 
Pope is the supreme master, and last resort, and so he will ever 
remain." If this statement is correct, we may well agree with 
Dr. Briggs, that the Pope is essentially an absolute sovereign, 
with no one on earth to check his will ; he may be a Gregory 
the Great or he may be a Borgia. But even in Italy and in 
France there are voters who regard clericism as the great 
enemy of the people, and the Roman hierarchy as the deadly 
foe which must be overthrown at all hazards and every cost. 

The Roman Curia are doing all in their power to stir up 
strife all over the Christian world with a madness which is the 
sure precursor of ruin. 

"They have issued a new syllabus of errors and an encyclical 
against modernism; they propose a new inquisition; they are 
hurrying on the canonization of Pius IX; they are even pro- 
posing another infallible dogma, the assumption of the Virgia, 
and a recalling of the Vatican Council to enhance still further 
the authority of the Pope to protect it from the supposed en- 
croachments of modern states. Pius IX. by his arbitrary meas- 
ures brought on the destruction of the temporal power of 
papacy ; Pius X. is on the way to still more serious results. 

"The Curia embued with the spirit of falsehood and de- 
lation, the spirit of denomination and persecution; the spirit 
of avarice and greed, the spirit of immobility and reaction ; all 
these evil spirits are now so powerful in the Curia as to over- 
awe and control such a devout and high-minded man as Pius 
X. The Curia is determined to resist and overcome any and 
every effort for reform. It does not wish the reunion of 
Christendom, the peace and unity of the Christian Church, but 

2^2 



CHURCH UNITY— IS IT ATTAINABLE? 

simply and alone a body that will be submissive without ques- 
tion to its domination in doctrine and life, not only by external 
obedience of conformity but by internal obedience of a sub- 
missive conscious and enslaved intellect, 

"At no time in the history of Christianity were the claims 
of the Roman and the Episcopal Church as a corporate and 
divinely ordained church, having a professional monopoly of 
the Holy Spirit, so thoroughly denied by the thinking world. 
The special and exclusive character of its ecclesiastical priest- 
hood as instruments and vehicles of divine mercy, the cere- 
monial conveyance of the divine influences from one human be- 
ing to another by the imposition of hands, are claims that are 
fast losing their hold upon a constantly growing body of both 
educated and uneducated people, who care less and less for out- 
ward and visible forms of religion, and less for a priesthood 
which has proven its uselessness as an intermediary between 
God and man." ^ 

We may concede that Catholicism had its place in an age 
when men were oppressed by hard grinding labor in order to 
win a livelihood, and we need not be surprised that they had 
not sufficient energy of mind to weigh or master the deeper 
mysteries of life and so were prepared to allow either author- 
ity to affirm their faith or criticism to dissolve it. 

"But, if Catholicism claims to be the one real sufficient and 
relevant form of the Christian religion then the truth must 
be spoken. Not in and through it, is religion to be realized in 
an age of thought, in a world of freedom, progress, order, and 
activity. Its doctrines of authority and the church is a direct 
provocative to skepticism, its idea of religion is an impoverish- 
ment of the ideal that came in the Kingdom of Heaven. 

"Faith can come by its rights only as it fulfils its duties to 
reason. And the church that alone has the right to live, is the 
church that, by finding in God the most humanity, most fills 

^ Dr. Charles A. Briggs in Church Unity. 

283 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

humanity with God ; and so works for the establishment of that 
Kingdom which was founded by the Son, and is governed by 
the Father of Man." ^ 

11. 

If Roman CathoHcism fails to furnish a satisfactory or per- 
manent church organism in society for the realization of the 
religion of Christ, where shall we find the true basis of church 
unity? Shall it be the dictum of council or creed, or shall we 
find the doctrine, ritual and administration methods of any one 
particular Protestant Church an acceptable basis of agreement ? 
If so, which one of the 215 sects and parties shall be taken as 
the true type and symbol of the one universal Church of 
Christ? As a matter of fact, does any one of the ecclesiastical 
organizations comprising organized Christendom, correspond 
with the organization of the church of the New Testament? 
Furthermore, was the breaking up of the Church of Christ into 
a number of different parties, sects, or groups in the same city 
ever dreamed of in the second century? 

Church unity based on agreement as to any particular 
church's idea of government and discipline can hardly be con- 
sidered attainable so long as there exist such serious discords 
and disagreement as to doctrine and worship and such irrecon- 
cilable differences as we find among Protestant denominations. 
Question of religious authority, certainty and infallibility, are 
difficult and delicate problems to deal with, and they are in a 
more unsettled condition to-day than ever. 

The entire controversy between Roman Catholics and 
Protestants as to the nature of the Christian ministry and the 
true doctrine of the eucharist is no nearer settlement than 
when the Protestant Reformation began. For this reason the 
futility of all efforts for organic church unity becomes more 
apparent with every passing year. And what is more, no ques- 

^ Catholicism, Roman and Anglican, page 204. 

284 



CHURCH UNITY— IS IT ATTAIN ABLEf 

tion of union or of adaptation can be entertained by those who 
regard a foreign potentate and a foreign conclave as supreme 
authority and fount of inspiration. Nothing short of sub- 
mission and conversion will suit Rome. 

A careful study of the volume on "Church Unity" fails to 
disclose any clear idea as to the nature and constitution of the 
church as a permanent organization in society. As the result 
of exhaustive study and research I find Dr. Briggs simply giv- 
ing expression to the idea or the hope that some day, in some 
way, the Papacy will be so reformed as to correspond with 
Jesus Christ's ideal, and be so transformed as to make it the 
executive head of a universal church. "When the reunion of 
Christendom shall eventually take place," says he, with un- 
shaken faith in its possibility, "the imperial Papacy will doubt- 
less become a limited monarchy without impairing the succes- 
sion, or the essential nature of the Papacy as the supreme 
jurisdiction of the church and the unity of the organism will 
find expression in the executive function of the historic episco- 
pate." 

Nevertheless Protestantism is built on the right of private 
judgment and the right of appeal from the Pope to Christ. 
The Protestant reformers separated from the Church of 
Rome on question of dogma and institution, and followed the 
authority of their own conscience and the Holy Scripture. 
Will their followers now accept the Roman dogma and its su- 
preme authority in all matters of faith and morals ? 

Dr. Brigg's conclusion flies in the face of the fact that 
the representative principle has little or no influence at present 
in the Roman Catholic world ; that the Papacy has absorbed 
into itself the authority of councils and of the people also, and 
so has become the most absolute despotism on earth, more ab- 
solute in its government than the Czar of Russia or the Sultan 
of Turkey; that the recent decision of the Papal commission 
under the lead of incompetent divines against the sure results 

285 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

of modern Biblical criticism presents clear evidence of the in- 
tolerance of modern Roman Scholasticism. There is already 
one supreme Judicatory in Rome guarded by venerable canon 
law, and independent of civil, social, political and ecclesiastical 
influences ; nevertheless, it has over and over again lost the 
confidence of the world by its unjust and iniquitous decisions. 

III. 
If it be difficult and dangerous to seek a union of Protes- 
tantism it is a still more serious undertaking to bring about a 
reunion of Protestantism with the Roman Catholic Church, a 
condition precedent to the unity of entire Christendom. 

"Against such a proposal," as Dr. Briggs admits, "the 
hereditary antagonism and dogmatic hostility of Protestantism 
burst into a flame of opposition. The wrongs suffered at the 
hands of Rome are recalled. Puritan and Huguenot, Dutch 
and German Reformed, cry out against priest and prelate. The 
dogmatic hostility to Rome aroused by the action of the Vat- 
ican Council decreeing Papal Infallibility rises to a white heat 
at the suggesting of consolidation and the acceptance of the 
claims of the Papacy as the infallible head of Christ's Church." 

One may well wonder that Dr. Briggs has the courage to 
advocate the reunion of Christendom on the basis of the Pap- 
acy, since he finds in a survey of the history of Christ's Church 
plain evidence that the disruption of the church has been due, 
in the main, to the intolerable tyranny of the appellate judica- 
tories in the church. But there can be no church unity without 
unity in appellate jurisdiction, and as no way has been pointed 
as yet whereby limitations can be established which will make 
it impracticable that there should be a recurrence of the in- 
tolerable injustice and tyranny under which our fathers suf- 
fered, what hope is there of a reunion of Christendom along 
the line which Dr. Briggs suggests? 

In the canon law of the Roman Catholic Qiurch there is 
what is known as the Lateran Council Degree which is guarded 

286 



CHURCH UNITY— IS IT ATTAIN ABLEf 

against in the English Church by the oath of King's Sov- 
ereignty, administered to deacons. It furnishes an illuminating 
instance of the depth and bitterness of the antagonism devel- 
oped between the two churches over this very question of 
jurisdiction. Here is the wording of the Lateran Council De- 
gree: 

"Let the secular powers^ whatever offices they may exercise 
exterminate from the territories under their jurisdic- 
tion heretics of all kinds, marked out by the church 

But if any temporal ruler, being required and admonished by 
the church, shall neglect to purge his land from this heretical 
filth, let him be bound to the chain of excommunication by the 
Metropolitan and other Bishops of the province. And if he 
shall disdain to make satisfaction within a year, let this be 
signified to the Supreme Pontiff, that he may declare the vas- 
sals of that ruler henceforth released from their allegiance, 
and may offer the land to occupation by Catholics, who having 
exterminated the heretics, may possess it in peace and preserve 
it steadfast in the Faith." 

And here is the counter-irritant in the form of the oath of 
the King's sovereignity. If it is lacking in precision and com- 
pleteness, it was evidently from no lack of intent on the part 
of those responsible for the formulations which it contains : 

"I, A. B., do swear that I do, from my heart, abhor, detest 
and abjure as impious and heretical that damnable Doctrine and 
Position that Princes excommunicated or deprived by the 
Pope, or any authority of the See of Rome, may be deposed or 
murdered by their subjects, or any other whatsoever. And I do 
declare that no foreign Prince, Person, Prelate, State or Po- 
tentate hath, or ought to have, any jurisdiction, power, supe- 
riority, pre-eminence or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, 
within this realm. So help me God." 

Little prospect here for the acceptance of the Papacy as 
the head of the Universal Church ! But how is this stumbling 
block to be removed? Which side is likely to be the first to 
yield its position — the Roman Church or the Church of Eng- 
land? 

287 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

If we turn to the Church of England, the English Acts of 
Uniformity, made in the interest of maintaining the unity of 
the church and of destroying schism of every kind, have been 
for three hundred years the curse of the British nation. They 
have produced a most grievous confusion of doctrine and wor- 
ship in the Church of England and a serious crisis over these 
three ceremonies, viz. : the use of lights in processions, the 
use of incense and the reservation of the holy sacrament. As 
the result of partizan interpretation, the greater part of the 
British nation has been excluded from the great mother 
church. The Puritan party was constrained to conformity; 
the result we see in the non-conforming churches. An agon- 
izing struggle has been going on to maintain unity in the 
Church of England. This has been complicated by the struggle 
of the Anglo-Catholic party to unite with the Church of Rome, 
and of the Protestant party to unite with the Presbyterian and 
non-conforming communions, a struggle which has increased 
rather than lessened in intensity and which threatens to dis- 
rupt the church. 

Lack of unity among the several great denominations of 
Christendom, is paralleled by lack of unity among separated 
denominations or parts of the Christian Church. Differences 
and disputes as to religious belief or as to its expression in re- 
ligious symbols or creeds or forms of worship, and the total 
failure to arrive at a consensus as to Christian doctrine upon 
which the churches may all stand in true Christian unity has 
resulted in a lamentable decay of religious interest on the part 
of the layman. Divided Christianity still remains guilty of 
the sin of continued and multiplying schism. 

The Roman Church shares in this guilt. It still maintains 
its claims of an absolute Papacy which is subversive of the his- 
toric episcopate and destructive of the original democracy of 
the church. As Dr. Newman Smyth has strikingly said, "in 
so doing it sins against the Holy Spirit of liberty, while on the 

288 



CHURCH UNITY— IS IT ATTAINABLE? 

other hand, the absolute independence of the different Protes- 
tant denominations is a sin against the Holy Spirit of Com- 
munion." Strifes and contentions still continue a distinctively 
prominent feature of religious history. 

IV. 

Orthodox Christianity has had centuries in which to com- 
pose the religious differences of its different branches, in which 
to demonstrate the healing power of the gospel and to bring 
peace on the earth. It has failed to accomplish this work; it 
is fast losing its usefulness, and its power as an evangelizing 
force among the nations of the earth. Church unity is no 
nearer attainment than is the accomplishment on the part of 
organized Christianity of the mission which Jesus gave to his 
followers. The rivalries and efforts for extension carried on 
by competing churches, the enormous waste of church funds 
in needless duplication of churches and the excess cost of 
maintenance still continue as the inevitable accompaniment of 
a divided and sectarian Christianity. 

Multitudes of Christians would be glad to witness the re- 
union of the discordant elements of Christendom into the one 
visible militant Church of Christ. Thus far, this has seemed a 
roseate dream to be realized in the golden dawn of the millen- 
nial age. The highest honor is due the noble men who have 
zealously, unselfishly and courageously sought to advance the 
cause of church unity. Nevertheless, the means proposed have 
been only tentative, palliative and temporary. There has been 
a lamentable inability to grasp the phases of the problem and to 
propose a single, practical, thoroughly workable plan or ac- 
ceptable basis upon which the churches of Christendom can 
come together. 

We may talk about overcoming the discords and divisions 

289 



'ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

which obtain among the various religious denominations of the 
Christian world ; we may hope and pray and dream and labor 
for church unity from now until the crack of doom, but until 
the church as a whole realizes in every fibre of its organism 
that church unity can be brought into being only through a 
concerted, representative and authoritative action on the part 
of all the great religious denominations of Christendom, all 
thoroughly united for this one purpose, the peace and concord 
of organized Christianity will continue to remain "a divine 
vision of possibility," not a divine realization. 

But suppose Protestantism takes upon itself to issue a call 
to the various religious denominations of the Christian world 
to send duly accredited representatives to a grand parliament 
of Christianity whose deliberations and conclusions shall be 
authoritative and binding upon all, thereby initiating a move- 
ment which will bring about a reunion of the different branches 
and sects now dividing Christendom. 

In the eyes of the Roman Curia, Protestantism is a schism, 
a falling away from the one Holy Catholic Church. Rome 
would meet its call for an Ecumenical council to formulate a 
basis for church unity with the caustic reminder that the 
Roman Catholic Church is the one Church of Christ of which 
St. Peter is the vicar of Christ; that it has maintained an un- 
broken succession from St. Peter for the last seventeen cen- 
turies. The Church of Rome insists that all that is necessary 
to bring about the unity of Christendom is for Protestantism 
to purge itself of the sin of separation ; that thus only can the 
peace and concord of the Church of Christ which was rudely 
broken by the Protestant reformers of the sixteenth century, 
be again restored to the world. "The Church of Rome re- 
mains to-day the one single, sacred and secular common- 
wealth," says Father Benson, "which has faced the revolutions 
and the whirling religions of the West and has survived with 

290 



CHURCH UNITY— IS IT ATTAINABLE? 

a continuity so unshaken that not one of her enemies can dis- 
pute it, and an authority which they can only resent." ^ 

On the other hand "Protestantism as it stands to-day," de- 
clares the Rev. Dr. Newman Smyth, "has lost authority over 
human life as represented in the community and the family; 
it has lost influence over vast areas of thought. Religious edu- 
cation is null; religious thinking in pulpit and pew is a lost 
art." "Furthermore," he continues, "Protestantism is gradu- 
ally ceasing to be regarded as a final and permanent condition 
of religious thought. The world no longer seeks to excuse it- 
self for non-compliance with its sacred tenets, wherein truth is 
treated as if it were a divine word that needed to be solemnized 
by councils and crystallized into dogmas and theological formu- 
las. Its terms are too narrow and dogmatic and irrational to 
be accepted as a basis for the world's redemption." 



V. 

While Dr. Briggs fails to offer any satisfactory explana- 
tion as the nature and constitution of the church as a "perman- 
ent organism" in society, it must be admitted that to construct 
a new religious order or formulate the discipline, doctrine and 
administrative features of an ideal Christian Church as an 
organized institution would call for the exercise of the highest 
type of religious constructive statesmanship. After twenty- 
five years' study of the subject the best that Dr. Briggs can do 
is to suggest a "Constitutional Papacy" — a sort of limited 
monarchy with a written constitution. But how could such a 
constitution be formed? Are its provisions to be formulated 
by the counsellors of the Pope who, entrenched in Rome, as 
Dr. Briggs observes, and perpetuating themselves from genera- 

^ Father Benson in The Atlantic Monthly, "The Coming 
Catholic Revival." 

291 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

tion to generation, ''are now as they have ever been, the petty 
tyrants of the Cathohc world." ^ Would the Pope consent to 
the calling of a council for this purpose? How would it be 
possible to define the doctrines of faith, the methods of wor- 
ship, the administrative methods, the rights and liberties of the 
church, and the restrictions to be thrown about the Papacy, in 
a form that would be satisfactory to both Protestants and Ro- 
man Catholics ? Would not the Roman Church be certain to re- 
sent any curtailment of the prerogatives or impairment of its 
primary and authoritative rule and domination ? 

On the other hand, after these centuries of contention and 
separation, would Protestantism consent to sacrifice its prin- 
ciples of religious freedom of conscience and worship, or to 
surrender its sonship to God for the bondage of Papal abso- 
lutism, which in the person of the present Pope Pius X. is 
more absolute and more determined than ever to resist all ef- 
forts toward reform? Even with a constitution would the 
Greek and the Protestant churches concede to the Curia the 
final right of interpreting that constitution? Are not the his- 
torical and Biblical rights of the Episcopate just as divine and 
even more sacred than those of the Pope? Would not lawful 
checks and balances have to be devised to secure to the three 
divinely appointed media of the church government and disci- 
pline their valid and properl}^ adjusted rights? 

But the Roman Church already has its constitution. The 
answer of the Roman Church, in the words of Arch-Bishop 
Ireland, is emphatic and conclusive on this point : 

"Christ once for all gave a constitution to the Papacy, that 
it be supreme; the constitution given by Christ, no Pope, no 
body of Bishops can alter. Counsellors, the Pope will gather 
around him ; vicars and delegates, he will have to divide with 
him the labors of his office, but the Supreme Master in last 
resort he will ever remain. The great duty of the Greek and 

^ Church Unity, Page 423. 

292 



CHURCH UNITY— IS IT ATTAINABLE? 

the Protestant Church is to withdraw from schism and seek 
sheher within the fold where the Master's prayer is fulfilled 
that they may be "one fold and one shepherd." 

But suppose the Pope should call a Council in the interest 
of church unity! How would it be possible to agree upon a 
constitution which would represent a consensus as to church 
doctrine, creeds, decrees, governments, discipline, institution, 
worship, sacraments, apostolic successor etc.? If it be a doc- 
trine of faith shall the Anti-Nicene Creed or the Nicene Creed 
be accepted as the final statement of Christian Faith? Was 
the last word spoken at the Synod of Dort or in the Formula 
of Concord, in the Westminster Assembly, the Book of Com- 
mon Prayer, or in the Council of the Vatican? Would not 
such an assemblage only accentuate the differences and di- 
visions of Christendom and end in confusion worse con- 
founded? Are we not forced to regard the attainment of the 
unity of Christendom on the basis propounded by Dr. Briggs 
as one of the most visionary and hopeless undertakings to 
which the mind and energies of man was ever given? 

While I entertain the utmost respect and even admiration 
for those who have courageously and earnestly labored for the 
reconciliation and reunion of the discordant elements of Chris- 
tianity, the consensus of opinion in the main, both outside and 
inside church lines, so far as I have been able to gather it, may 
be summed up in the following conclusions, viz. : 

First, that the problems and difficulties involved are in- 
soluble. 

Second, that church unity is too visionary to be within 
range of the attainable. 

Third, that those who are trying to bring it about are 
simply "Coquetting with the impossible. 

These conclusions appear to be fully justified by the facts 
in the case. Dr. Briggs expresses the hope that in some way 
the whole Christian world will rally about Christ our Lord, 

293 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

and a successor of St. Peter, who will be as near to Christ as 
St. Peter was and as truly a representative of the Lord and 
Master, as Sliepherd of the flock of Christ and the Executive 
head of a reunited Christianity. This hope will be very much 
nearer fulfillment if the rally is around Christ, as the supreme 
authority in the church, the Way, the Truth, the Life, and who 
has promised to be with His followers always "even unto the 
end of the world." 

Christ's followers are constituted "Kings and Priests unto 
God." The only successors to St. Peter, which God requires 
are those who, like Peter, will confess Christ, and who can 
say, as Peter did, "Thou are the Christ, the Son of the living 
God." Upon this confession, this understanding of His nature 
and mission, which is a revelation, not of flesh and blood (hu- 
man doctrine or opinion), but of the Father which is in 
Heaven, will Christ build the invisible Church of God, to be 
expressed in such simpHcity of outward form, or means of 
worship, and such unity of faith and works as will reflect 
the spirit and truth of Christ and ultimate in the complete re- 
demption of the race. 



294> 



IV. 

ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY. 

Its Alternatives as to Christian Science. 

ORGANIZED Christianity has three alternatives, viz.: 
either to oppose, ignore or combine with the Christian 
Science movement. Unfortunately, none of these alternatives 
furnishes a practical or satisfactory solution of the difficulties 
which confront the orthodox churches and threaten their dis- 
integration and final dissolution. 

In olden days martyrs laid their earthly all upon the altar 
of sacrifice for the cause of religious or scientific progress. 
History is crowded with the record of suffering; of old the 
blood of the martyrs has been the seed of the church and the 
cross, "truth's central sign." Prophets have been rewarded 
with stones ; reformers have been maligned and burned at the 
stake; JesuS was executed as a criminal blasphemer. The 
trials which.^4;hese encountered, as history shows, have awaited 
in some form every pioneer of Truth whose every advancing 
footstep is still opposed as of yore. 

"W^know the price and yet our gifts we strew, 
Our life-blood and our tears to feed the lamp 
God orders us to bear in front of you." 

1% this age ecclesiastical or orthodox Christianity finds it- 
self shorn of the power of life and death. We have passed 
the period of physical religious intolerance; nevertheless the 
clerics* still control the religious and, to some extent, the sec- 
ular press. To-day, as in by-gone days, the cry has been re- 
peated, "Crucify him, crucify him." 

295 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

Religious writers, who, as Paul Sabatier remarks, "pose 
with superb insolence as the appointed guardians of ortho- 
doxy," it is to be hoped will some day achieve that Christian 
spirit which recognizes all good men as brethren. Meanwhile 
they have not hesitated to place the founder of Christian 
Science in the public pillory as a fit subject for the scorn and 
derision of the populace. True, there have been some in this 
age who have said of this movement, as did Gamaliel of old, 
"Let them alone : for if this counsel be of men, it will come 
to naught: but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it: lest 
haply, ye be found even to fight against God." The clergy can 
now realize that instead of opposing and denouncing the Chris- 
tian Science movement they might better have said: "This 
awakening is of God and must be accepted as His," not dealt 
with as if it were the devil's. 

It means that these new ideas of God and man and the uni- 
verse, of social justice and human rights propounded by Chris- 
tian Science, these outreachings for a larger good, are all of 
Christ; it means that men are getting ready to understand the 
idea of God's kingdom. Nevertheless, Christian Science has 
had to pass through the blazing fires of modern publicity, 
which, like Nebuchadnezzar's furnace, have been heated seven 
times hot. But in these latter days opposition to Christian 
Science has largely spent its force. The fires of persecution, 
for lack of material to keep up the flames, have mouldered to 
ashes; the ingenuity of cruelty has exhausted itself. The 
campaign waged against the movement and its founder has 
become so intermittent and harmless as to be a negligible quan- 
tity, not excepting the cannonading occasionally carried on by 
the popgun artillerists of Times Square and Park Row. 

II. 

But since Christian Science has seemed to thrive the more 
it is persecuted, and it has now become evident that an open 

296 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 

and aggressive hostility is not being attended with satisfactory- 
results, will organized Christianity decide to adopt the alter- 
native of ignoring the movement? 

There are several conclusive reasons why it cannot well 
afford to do so. As a recent writer has declared, "Christian 
Science is too thoroughly unified and in harmony with itself ; 
its religious therapeutics are too soundly anchored in a sys- 
tem." It is a movement instinct with vitality; its Sabbath 
services and week-night testimony meetings receive a support 
which crowds these meetings to the doors. With the orthodox 
churches of to-day, the great problem is to get people to come 
to church and to make both ends meet at the close of the fiscal 
year. With the Christian Science church the great problem is 
to find room for the people who throng to its services, and 
collection boxes big enough to hold their offerings for the 
support of the movement. 

Christian Science claims to be a demonstrable religion; in 
common parlance, "it is making good." Its most powerful 
propaganda is not the adventitious aids commonly employed in 
securing a church following, but the healing work of a body 
of nearly five thousand Christian Science practitioners, which 
constitutes an appeal to the sick and the sorrowing that is well- 
nigh irresistible. Furthermore, it is .the only well known and 
acknowledged Christian denomination that believes and accepts 
that part of Christianity, the healing of the sick, as the nat- 
ural and indispensable phenomenon of religion or that believes 
that it can be compHed with. 

A church which is of comparatively recent birth, which has 
attained a membership and following of 1,500,000 to 2,000,000; 
which is carrying on a successful ministry of relief from the 
bodily and spiritual sufferings of mankind, in accordance with 
Christ's commands ; which has been building new churches and 
establishing new societies at the rate of two for every consec- 

297 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

utive week during the past 19 years must be reckoned with by- 
organized Christianity, "and will be," says a brilliant satirist, 
"when it is too late." 

III. 

But if to ignore or oppose the Christian Science movement 
has been of no avail, is a combination or merger of interests 
within the range of possibility? 

We are living in an age of consolidation. In its larger 
aspects, it contemplates not only the organization of an inter- 
national body of representatives whose decisions and action 
in the peaceful settlement of controversies between nations 
would be recognized and accepted as the final determination 
thereof; but a world-wide federation of industrial interests 
and a peaceful reign of international law, that will make for 
concord and harmony among all nations; an internationalism 
which is not only the dream of the workman or the theorist, 
but the ideal of the statesman. 

"We have reached a point," says Secretary Knox, in an 
address at a recent commencement of the University of Penn- 
sylvania, on the spirit and purpose of American diplomacy, 
"when it is evident that the future holds in store a time when 
wars shall cease ; when the nations of the world shall realize a 
federation as real and vital as that now subsisting between 
the component parts of a single state ; when by deliberate inter- 
national conjunction the strong shall universally help the 
weak, and when the corporate righteousness of the world shall 
compel unrighteousness to disappear and shall destroy the 
habitations of cruelty still lingering in the dark places of the 
earth. This is 'the spirit of the wide world brooding on things 
to come.' 

"That day will be the millennium, of course; but in some 
sense and degree it will surely be realized in this dispensa- 
tion of mortal time." 

298 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 

But, as Dr. Newman Smyth well remarks, "Shall interna- 
tionalism come on apace and Catholicism tarry in the church ?" 
Consolidation, from a severely practical standpoint, involves 
an appraisal of the temporal and spiritual values of institu- 
tional Christianity, or in other words, a stock-taking which 
expanding knowledge and religious progress and the exigencies 
of the churches may well justify, apart from its bearing, upon 
any proposition looking to the merger of religious interests on 
the part of organized Christianity. 

In the United States there are nearly 200 different Prot- 
estant church bodies, ranging in membership from eight souls 
to eleven millions. Only thirteen of these bodies have a mem- 
bership of over 100,000. The combined membership of all the 
churches equals about three-eighths of the total population of 
this country. 

From Dr. Waldron's study of church attendance in Boston 
it appears that Protestantism has provided in that city for 
more than twice the number of sittings than are ever used at 
any one time. And it is estimated that there is a proportionate 
surplus of church property and surplus sittings throughout 
the United States. This diminishing interest in the church will 
increase rather than lessen. According to the statistics of 
the Bureau of Census, the average seating capacity for the 
Protestant denomination is three times the average member- 
ship in each organization. The figures given out by this 
bureau's report in 1906 as to the value of church property in 
the United States show a total expenditure of $1,257,575,867, 
with a mortgage incumbrance of $108,050,946. This latter 
sum represents a very considerable proportion of the intrinsic 
value of the churches' property holdings. 

In estimating the value of this church property, due con- 
sideration must be given not only to its mortgage indebtedness, 
but to present availability and up-to-date convenience. A great 
deal of the architecture and seating arrangements, heating and 

299 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

ventilation acoustics, etc., of the orthodox churches is of an 
antiquated type, and is becoming less and less desirable owing 
to the many removal changes and withdrawals. This is true 
not only of country church buildings, but those in the city, 
where there are at present probably more than one milHon 
Protestants who have no active church affiliations. 

Rev. Dr. George R. Van de Water, Rector of St. Andrews 
church, speaking of the serious loss of membership by 
removals and the large percentage who do not attend church, 
finds the cause in a destroying indifference, a listless lethargy, 
a wicked withdrawal from personal participation in Hfting 
the load and bearing the burden. "Where," he asks, "are 1,500 
bonafide communicants of St. Andrews parish, not one of 
whom we would dare erase from our books? What has be- 
come of their consciences about worship?" 

A recent writer, the Rev. Dr. Root, has made a somewhat 
elaborate investigation of the present status of the church 
property belonging to organized Christianity. From this he 
draws the astounding conclusion that there are 50,000 churches 
in the land "fit only to burn." The facts and conditions re- 
vealed by this writer in a recent number of the Delineator are 
startling. "At the first federal council of the churches of 
Christ in America a speaker told of one place with a popula- 
tion of 3,000 which had 14 churches, three of them Presby- 
terian. Bishop Earl Cranston of the Methodist Church re- 
ported a village of less than 1,000 with six pastors, 13 churches 
and a good woman, who wanted another. 

In the Independent of April 9, 1906, Albert J. Kennedy de- 
scribed a Minnesota "city" of 1,347 inhabitants, 875 of foreign 
parentage and 472 of American. He estimated that the total 
number of possible church attendants among the latter was 
285 ; and the actual number of attendants half that number. 
There were 95 heads of families, of whom not more than 50 
would be contributors, and capable of paying in to the support 

300 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 

of the church $30 per annum on an average. The $1,500 which 
could be raised and the total attendance might be sufficient 
to maintain one church but not more on a normal basis. Yet 
here were to be found four American churches that for 35 
years had received on an average $534 missionary aid, or a 
total of $18,ooo. Taking the entire population, there were 
eight denominations and seven houses of worship with a total 
valuation of $21,300, of which $7,400 now lies absolutely idle 
and worthless. The article called forth some defense, but no 
denial, of the situation." 

Another writer gave these facts : "I began my ministry in 
a Kansas town of 600. We had four church buildings, six 
organizations, seven resident preachers, 22 denominations and 
very little religion. We are playing at religious tiddle-de-winks 
while humanity is staggering down the dark ways of sin and 
woe." 

Any proposition which looks to the consolidation or merger 
of the various religious denominations into one grand church 
organic unity, such as took form and became visible in the 
earlier days of Christianity when the disciples were of one 
mind, must of necessity involve the displacing of antiquated 
forms and methods of ecclesiastical organization by newer and 
more efficient methods of administration, discipline and ac- 
tivity. 

In the industrial world, where the value of business com- 
binations has been demonstrated in consolidations of gigantic 
scope and where wonderful achievements have been brought 
about, the readjustment of manufacturing plants and facil- 
ities and the introduction of improved business methods of 
handling and the marketing the product of the mills have al- 
ways followed such merging of interests. Old mills with an- 
tiquated machinery and costly methods of manufacture have 

301 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

been gradually replaced with newer, more modern and scientific 
processes of production; economies are introduced here and 
there, leaks and wastes are stopped, maintenance costs are 
carefully studied, newer systems of accounting and organiza- 
tion are brought into use in order the more effectually to in- 
crease the output and lower the cost of production, thus bring- 
ing about the great desideratum in all industrial enterprises — 
the minimum cost of production — the maximum output — and 
the largest possible increase in the dividends on the capital 
stock of the corporation. 

This process is not regarded as a painful necessity or as 
involving "much sacrifice and a lot of heroic surgery." On 
the contrary, every constituent concern fortunate enough to be 
included in the consolidation welcomes these changes in the 
line of increased efficiency and increased profits. The stock- 
holders cheerfully surrender certain rights and privileges of 
management in the interest of lower costs and quite as cheer- 
fully accept their share of the enhanced dividends resulting 
•therefrom — dividends that in these days have attained high- 
water mark. But when it comes to church unity or church 
consohdation the Christian world refuses to accept in the in- 
terest of religious harmony and the spread of the Gospel what 
is a constant accompaniment of industrial consolidation. 
Christendom, in theory at least, is a Christian family owning 
one Shepherd, professing allegiance to the Prince of Peace, 
yet it presents the spectacle of a house divided against itself. 

It takes nearly two hundred different parties or denomina- 
tions in orthodox Christianity to compass or express their 
various religious beliefs and varying ideas on matters of theo- 
logical doctrine, ritual and ecclesiastical organization. The 
task of reconciling these differences so that Christian unity 
may be attained, instead of growing easier becomes more and 
more difficult with the lapse of time. It is safe to say that 
there is more dissatisfaction and less agreement within these 

302 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 

religious denominations or any one of them than in any polit- 
ical party or all the ' five political parties which sought ami- 
cably to express their differences at the last presidential elec- 
tion. And the lamentable fact remains that the different 
branches of Christianity which refuse to surrender or com- 
pose their religious issues or differences in the interest of 
church unity and the cause of Christ do so in face of the fact 
that the bulk of these differences, which have led to division, 
could be dropped at once and forever without depleting any 
really valuable asset of Christianity. That sectarian Chris- 
tianity cannot get together in the spirit of Christian unity and 
of Christian power and influence illustrates how far short 
it has fallen from the Spirit and Truth of Christ or from that 
true unity of religious faith which St. Paul set before the 
Ephesian Church as an essential element in Christian char- 
acter. 

"Insistent individualism," says a recent writer, "everywhere 
puts itself directly athwart the path of progress." How this 
individualism works out in practice the following additional 
facts will amply illustrate. According to the statistics com- 
piled by Dr. Carroll there are 200,022 Protestant churches 
with only 149,472 ministers to supply the pulpits of these 
churches. In other words, there are 50,550 churches which 
must either be without a pastor or else divide a minister's time. 
Furthermore, there are 100,000 churches which are too small 
to support a minister and are maintained only by receiving 
missionary aid, and paying the pastor a starvation salary. 
As a result of careful investigation, correspondence, observa- 
tion and comparison of statistics. Dr. Root reaches the con- 
clusion that half the churches in the United States are super- 
fluous and that consequently half the church buildings are 
misplaced and are practically useless. 

"Granted that $500,000,000 is sunk in needless duplication 
of houses of worship," says Dr. Root, "there is probably not 

303 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

a dollar more expended in church property than is actually 
needed." The trouble is that it is not expended to meet real 
needs. Organized Christianity has thus been guilty of wasting 
or misplacing this enormous sum by reason of religious differ- 
ences, divisions and sectarianism. 

Other wasteful expenditures are chargeable to "insist- 
ent individualism." After the churches are built they must 
be supported. The needless duplication of church buildings 
involves a serious economic waste which amounts to the 
enormous sum of at least Sioo,ooo,ooo per annum. The crying 
need of organized Christianity, from the practical standpoint, 
is the cessation of this needless duplication of churches and 
this economic waste of millions, which could be employed to 
far greater advantage in the spread of the Gospel ; and the 
elimination of the spirit of competition, which accounts in 
large measure for the erection of so many unnecessary 
churches, and robs many communions of that dominant in- 
fluence which is imperatively needed. The call is imperative 
for a consolidation of forces, a withdrawal of rival ecclesia<^- 
tical organizations in each other's territory and the destruction 
of the tendency to strengthen any one denominational system 
for the sake of its own welfare and pride. 

How this spirit operates in the rivalries and contentions of 
competing denominations is seen in this overproduction of 
churches in almost any village, city or township that may be 
named. Here are some notable instances : In one town there 
are seven churches to provide for a total population of 3,000 
people. In one of the smaller cities of Massachusetts there 
may be found no less than 81 Protestant churches and 10 
Roman Catholic churches, or 91 churches for a population of 
26,831, one church for every 296 inhabitants. In the county 
there are no less than 30 superfluous churches. In one village 
five churches are competing for the support of a township of 
386. In one town five churches divide an ancient town fund 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 

left for the support of the gospel and the religious interests of 
845 people ; $250,000 is wasted by planting a costly church of 
the same denomination 75 feet from another, either one of 
which is ample for both congregations. Seventy-five per cent 
of the efforts of these two rival churches is wasted in com- 
petition. Nor is this all. There is a tremendous paralysis of 
moral influence by this rivalry and competition. The dupli- 
cation of church plants is worse than wasteful; it is not only 
wrong economically, but religiously. It is not only unworldly 
from an industrial standpoint but unchristian, it prejudices and 
embitters the injured group of fellow Christians, and es- 
tranges the great middle class from the churches. 

What is the real trouble ? You can define it in one word — 
religious institutianalism. 

V. 

The church centers its spiritual values in its ministry, its 
doctrines and its religious teachings. It has its scholastic theo- 
logy, neatly packed and parceled in dogma, tied with red tape 
and sealed with the seal of the corporation; Hkewise a lot of 
antiquated text-books, which students at theological schools are 
protesting against as ill-adapted to modern thought and pro- 
gress and a waste of time to study or to use after graduation. 

The creeds and doctrines of organized Christianity, em- 
balmed in book form and taught for centuries by scholastic 
theologians, are badly shop-worn, out of fashion, and repu- 
diated by the masses. They can only be considered as useless 
stock in trade. These volumes merely lumber the shelves of 
the theological shops and might well be relegated to the scrap 
heap or to that "Museum of Curios" which Prof. James has 
instituted for the clumsy devices of an antiquated philosophy. 

An institutional Christianity which relegates heaven to a 
distant and uncertain future and the greater part of the human 
race to Hades; that, instead of fulfilHng the healing ministry 

305 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

committed to it by its great Founder, refers organic diseases 
to a materialistic profession, and functional disorders to the 
Emanuel clinic for treatment by "hypnotic suggestion," and 
whose preaching services do not hold the public, is not in the 
nature of the case a desirable acquisition or one any pro- 
gressive and successful religious movement could use to ad- 
vantage. Before reaching a position where overtures might 
reasonably be made looking to a merger or consolidation of 
religious interests, organized Christianity must first disburden 
itself of a lot of dead values before it can hope to be a power 
which leads men forward or give it real standing as a re- 
ligious power in the world. 

Jesus estabHshed a society, a Christian brotherhood, free 
from proscriptive regulations. He made no attempt to hedge 
humanity about with outward restraints or restrictions as 
though the reason, the heart and the conscience of mankind 
could not be trusted. The society which He formed was one 
where, instead of outside rules, an internal law was to reign; 
its members were to live in the Spirit and speak the Truth. 

"Organized Christianity," says a recent writer, "clings to 
the old interpretations and presentations; it is still closely 
wedded to its old ideals or idols." While the world has been 
crying for love, optimism and the evolution of the soul, the 
churches have clung to the old teachings of fear, and original 
sin; while Christian Science has been crying "Look upward 
and onward," the old pulpits re-echo the antiquated cry "Look 
backward and downward." Christian Science teaches "You 
are a child of a King, made in the image of your Father, and 
destined to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, which is within 
you" ; the orthodox churches continue to proclaim "You are a 
worm of the dust, a child of the Devil, conceived in iniquity 
and begotten in depravity. You are fit only for eternal Mam- 
nation and will burn in Hell unless saved by Grace." The 
orthodox churches picture man "as standing, cap in hand, like 

306 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 

a mendicant, begging forgiveness and grace which he does not 
really deserve, but which he still hopes for through Grace; 
Christian Science pictures him standing as a son before his 
Father, filled with a belief in the love of the Divine Parent 
and asking that he be allowed to enter into his divine inherit- 
ance, his natural birthright. 

VI. 

It would be quite as difficult to estimate the actual value of 
the priesthood and the ministerial class to the practice of re- 
ligion in these days as it would be to estimate the value of 
church property or for the church to reverse its doctrinal po- 
sition. The clergy, as an official adjunct of the church, has no 
sanction from the founder of Christianity; it possesses no vital 
elements in its sermonizing and is fast becoming a useless ap- 
pendage to the Christian religion. Christ Jesus created no 
order of priesthood to which any man could belong and made 
no use of any term that would imply the continuance of any 
ecclesiastical function, such as teaching or preaching, bap- 
tizing, celebrating the eucharist or exercising discipline. 

The foundation of a class of officers standing apart from 
the mass of the Christian community, invested with the at- 
tributes of special sanction and exercising a jurisdiction which 
established a relation of subordination between the clergy and 
the laity was no part of the life or ordering of the early Chris- 
tian church and has no foundation in the teachings of Jesus. 

A ministry which rejects the healing Gospel of Christ; 
which is working under the belittling burden of an exhausted 
yet authoritative past; which comprises many anchorets of 
the study "strained by mental overproduction and morbid 
ideals," would not be a helpful propaganda, so far as the 
Christian Science movement is concerned; the more especially 
so, since mere personal opinions, in the guise of the traditional 
sermon, are not now in demand because they are not accom- 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

plishing the purposes for which reHgious services are or should 
be held. Not only so, there has been a great decay of faith 
in the priestly conception of the ministry which people of the 
present day decline to take seriously. They are tired of the 
traditional style of preaching. Flowery sermons and fine ora- 
tions savor too much of sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. 
They have lost their hold upon the masses and presage a new 
order wherein the ministerial class once so powerful will 
gradually pass out of existence. 

There is a further consideration affecting the value of the 
ministerial class in any combination with Christian Science. 
It would have to reverse completely its position on the subject 
of evil, sin, suffering, disease, calamity, death, Heaven, Hell 
and everlasting punishment. It is a difficult matter to up-root 
the belief in a Devil, whether regarded as an evil power or 
Spirit or as an eternal entity and intelligence opposed to the 
Infinite God. It would be equally difficult to banish material- 
ism from the pulpit and from the minds of the laity of organ- 
ized Christianity or destroy the theory of suffering held by the 
church profession based on the reality and unavoidability of 
the ills and miseries of mankind and expressed in the follow- 
inging conclusion of Canon Masterman, 'Tor the unavoidable 
suffering of this world we throw the responsibility on God." 

Christian Science declares it is impossible to conceive of 
God as Infinite Good and then incorporate an entity called 
Satan or spirit of evil, or hold God responsible for evil in any 
form. It teaches that the only Satan there is, is the false con- 
cept of what has been termed carnal mind. 

The successful growth of the Christian Science movement 
has conclusively demonstrated the fact that Christian Science 
is based on divine Principle or Truth which is capable of 
demonstration and that a policy of ignoring or opposing it is 
barren of results and develops rather than retards its progress. 
The ministerial classes, however, have not progressed beyond 

308 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 

the first stage of opposition to Christian Science. The clergy- 
continue in the most bUnd and fatuous manner to insist that 
Christian Science conflicts with the Bible and hold fast to the 
time-worn, moss-backed statement: "Christian Science is un- 
christian and unscientific." Organized Christianity clings 
tenaciously to its theory of man as a fallen creature ; Christian 
Science teaches that because man is the offspring of God, his 
nature must be spiritual, and that the demonstration of health 
and holiness upon this basis verifies the promise and declares 
the present practicability of true Christianity. 

The ministerial class as an asset would consequently figure 
small in any proposed combination with a religious body which 
has eliminated the preaching function from its religious ser- 
vices and has made no provisions whatever for theological 
middlemen. To the mind of the lay observer it is not clear 
just how the Christian Science Church could utilize a body of 
clerics who accept the reality of evil and deny the reality of 
Christian healing and the possibility of restoring this lost heal- 
ing element to the church, now the distinguishing feature of 
the Christian Science church. How could they be of any value 
as practitioners without a great change of heart? The pros- 
pect is quite as remote as that of church unity among the war- 
ring denominations of institutional Christianity. 

For organized Christianity to combine with Christian 
Science would mean in reality the decay and dissolution of its 
ministerial class. Hence any formal combination with a 
young, active and virile competitor, which is receiving accession 
to its ranks by the thousands while organized Christianity is 
losing its followers in at least equal numbers we may properly 
conclude is not within the range of probability. 

Thus far organized Christianity has stoutly insisted that 
it has no use for Christian Science; Christian Science, on the 
above showing as to the temporal and spiritual values of the 
church — including its clerics — would certainly have no use for 

309 




ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

organized Christianity. A combination, if effected, would sim- 
ply mean that organized Christianity, as at present conducted, 
would relapse into a state of "innocuous desuetude" or else its 
members would become active Christian Scientists, an alterna- 
tive which confronts it in either case. 

But this does not necessarily imply that there would be less 
religion in the world. It does mean that the religion of Christ 
is throwing off its old forms. Less and less emphasis is being 
placed on ceremonies and dogmas, more and more stress upon 
the life within and its Christ-like expression in outward ac- 
tivities. 

I have been an orthodox church member and intimately as- 
sociated with church activities for many years. Latterly I 
have been constrained to ask myself and others these ques- 
tions : "What would happen if organized Christianity were 
restricted to the simple order of worship which obtains in the 
Christian Science church services? What would be left if the 
forms and ceremonies which obtain among orthodox churches 
were to be eliminated? If the clergy, the preaching services, 
the choirs, the exhibitions, the fairs, the placards, billboards 
and other forms of advertising — not to mention the various 
other high-pressure methods, such as brass bands, orchestras, 
theatre and opera singers, chorus leaders, cornetists, famous 
pianists, stereopticons and moving picture shows, employed 
to bring dying men and women into the kingdom, were all 
dispensed with, what would be left as its chief asset? Would 
anything be left except its scholastic theolog}'-, and is this not 
so full of outworn theories of predestination, vicarious suf- 
fering, total depravity and endless punishment that the mind 
revolts from its further presentation by the pulpiteers of the 
church?" 

. What then would happen? Is not the answer an obvious 
one? W'ould there be sufficient vitality and interest remaining 
to keep organized Christianity together over Sunday? What is 

310 



ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 

its future to be in the face of a church which has restored 
the simplicity of primitive Christianity to the world, including 
the lost element of healing; that looks away from all false 
supports to the one true God, whom it worships in spirit and 
in truth? Jesus made religion real; Christian Science is 
demonstrating its reality in this day and age by the simplicity 
of its faith, the spirituality of its worship and its healing works. 
Theoretical truth can never withstand exerimental truth; no 
more can organized Christianity withstand Christian Science 
as long as it continues to concern itself with creeds and dog- 
mas, with doctrines instead of deeds, and fails so lamentably 
to illustrate the healing power of the gospel of Christ or to 
create a society correspondent to Christ's ideals. 



311 



V. 

THE LAYMEN^S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT. 

4, ifTlHE church militant must also be the church expect- 
A ant," says a prominent religious writer ; "its answer to 
the challenge of the world must be one of faith and not of 
feaS*." Christian expectation as to the triumphant conquest of 
the world for Christ still has plenty of room for exercise. 
Organized Christianity still continues to wait and hope for the 
fulfilment of its Master's great commission, "Go ye into the 
world and disciple all nations." 

In a lapse of nineteen centuries the church has accom- 
plished one-third of its task. The unfulfilled portion, viz. : 
the conversion to Christianity of the remainder of the human 
race, the laymen's missionary movement generously and 
bravely purposes to accompHsh in a period of thirty-five years, 
through the employment of a force of 40,000 missionary work- 
ers and the expenditure of the sum of $55,000,000 per annum, 
or a total of $2,000,000,000 for the entire period. 

The attitude of the leaders of the laymen's missionary 
movement is no less militant than that of the church. Whether 
it is due to "an intense faith or a fevered imagination," or 
whether that movement will ever pass from the missionary 
movement militant to the missionary movement triumphant 
remains to be seen. The proposition, in brief, is for an influen- 
tion and thorough organized body of successful business lay- 
men, drawn from financial, industrial, professional and other 
circles to combine with the church in a united and vigorous 
effort to bring about the prompt conversion of the heathen 
world to Christianity. 

31Z 



THE LAYMEN'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT 

To treble the present force of missionaries, operating under 
the auspices of organized Christianity and more than double 
missionary collections and expenditures is within the range of 
possibility if the movement were such as to enlist the financial 
backing that the wealth and Christian sentiment of this age is 
fully able to give it. The question is not one of ability to se- 
cure the required force of workers nor the necessary funds to 
support the undertaking; it is whether practical, successful 
business men will consider the movement sufficiently well ad- 
vised to support it to the extent proposed. 

The movement raises at once a number of serious queries : 
Is the type of Christianity which organized Christianity is now 
exemplifying worth propagating? What is the message which 
it brings to the world? What is it actually doing? What is its 
promise to humanity ? 

Since its present system of conducting its missionary work 
is neither scriptural, wise, economical nor attended with satis- 
factory results, is it a sound proposition to employ a force of 
40,000 missionaries and to expend $2,000,000,000 in an en- 
deavor to evangelize the heathen under orthodox auspices? 

Some Practical Questions. 

There are those who profess to see in the signs of our 
times that which presages the passing of Protestantism and the 
coming in of a new Catholicism. The present is regarded by 
many as a transitional era in which Protestantism stands as a 
providential preparation for something beyond itself, as the 
prelude to a more glorious age and a grander Christianity 
already at the door. Before wide-awake, practical men will 
employ men and money on a missionary scheme, they must 
have satisfactory answers to some very practical questions 

For instance, how are these 40,000 workers to be employed ? 
Who are to organize and direct their activities ? Through what 

313 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

channels is the money to be disbursed? In what particular 
direction or through what particular lines of effort are their 
energies to be exerted? Are they to constitute an organized 
force, operating as a compact whole and directed to certain 
definite ends on behalf of organized institutional Christianity, 
and if so, what body of men are to take the responsible man- 
agement of the work? Is the movement to be conducted 
through existing mission boards or through a body of repre- 
sentatives drawn from the entire Christian world, Catholic, 
Greek and Protestant, in proportion to membership? Or, if 
the workers employed and the money raised is to be divided 
among the different branches of the Protestant church and 
disbursed under separated church auspices, who is to make 
that apportionment and how provide against the work being 
carried on along competing lines of effort, so that a Baptist, for 
instance, shall not duplicate the work of a Methodist on the 
same ground? Who shall decide between the claim of the 
Roman Catholic church as the one universal and divinely or- 
ganized church of Christ, and the claim of the Protestant 
Episcoal church as the one church of Christ, outside of which, 
and "separated from that unity all the rest of the Christian 
world are merely so-called Christians?" 

The question immediately arises, will the object of this 
grand propaganda for Christianity be to convert the heathen 
world to Roman Catholicism or to make Protestant, Episco- 
palian, or Baptist, or Methodist, or Unitarian, or Lutheran, 
converts, and how successfully can that object be carried out? 
What can a divided, sectarian, decadent Christianity do for 
the world? How effectively can it support a missionary move- 
ment? If church unity is impossible of attainment, as we 
have already pointed out, is the outlook for missionary unity 
of effort any more promising? 

A proposition to carry the Gospel of Christ to all the 
heathen world raises of necessity a question as to the particular 

314 



THE LAYMEN'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT 

type of Christian church or Christian sect which shall be 
urged upon the acceptance of the non-Christians and if con- 
verts to Christianity are made, under what form or instutition 
or creed, ritual, polity or ecclesiastical organization shall they 
be gathered? 

Attitude Toward Christian Healing. 

A proposition of this magnitude also involves other ques- 
tions. Is the commission Jesus gave to His followers, viz.: 
"to preach the gospel and heal the sick," to be carried out, and 
if so, will this body of 40,000 laborers be supplied with the 
proper credentials from the churches they represent to fulfil 
this commission in its entirety? Will these missionaries seek 
the undivided garment, the whole Christ, as the first proof of 
Christianity, or will they be governed by the attitude of the 
Protestant clergy of to-day as to Christian healing? 

What reply will the missionary make to the poor heathen 
who finds in the New Testament the distinct command the 
Master gave to His disciples to go forth into all the world, to 
heal the sick? What answer is to be given to the direct ques- 
tion, "Why can you not heal now as did Jesus' followers in 
the early ages of Christianity"? What are the missionaries to 
say or to do when confronted by another religious denomina- 
tion which is demonstrating the power of the gospel to save 
the sick as well as the sinful ? 

"Man-made doctrines are waning. They have not waxed 
strong in times of trouble. Devoid of the Christ-power, how 
can they illustrate the doctrines of Christ or the miracles of 
grace? Denial of the possibility of Christian healing robs 
Christianity of the very element which gave it divine force and 
its astonishing and unequalled success in the first century. 
Christians are under as direct orders now as they 

315 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

were then, to be Christ-like, to possess the Christ-spirit, to 
follow the Christ-example, and to heal the sick as well as 
the sinning."^ 

If the gospel these missionaries are to preach is not to in- 
clude Christianity's lost element of healing, are they to carry 
a stock of assorted drugs and be accompanied with a body of 
druggists and doctors, so that by an admixture of religion and 
materia medica the heathen may receive the benefits and 
blessings of the Christian civilization these missionaries have 
left behind them? 

If he be wise, the poor heathen may urge, perhaps, that 
many drugs are badly adulterated, or are deadly poison; still, 
if he buys a poisonous drug at an orthodox dispensary he may 
have the bottle so labeled, or if a materialistic doctor prescribes 
it, he may have the satisfaction vouchsafed to Christian coun- 
tries of getting a Latin name for it combined with a druggist's 
prescription number ! If he ask whether this sort of healing 
propaganda will be attended with success or whether there will 
be any less sickness because of this combination of Christian- 
ity and materia medica; if he seeks to know what has been the 
experience of those countries whence the missionaries came, 
what sort of information will he get? The honest and well 
informed missionary will be obliged to confess that there is 
more disease and mortality than ever ; that the need for doctors 
has been increasing instead of diminishing; that it costs more 
under materia medica to be sick and to get well than at any 
previous period in the history of the race. 

Church Unity Essential. 

One may also conceive of these missionaries carrying an 
assorted stock of books on scholastic theology. But who shall 
decide as to the particular creed they shall teach, or as to the 

^Science and Health, pages 134 and 138. 

316 



THE LAYMEN'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT 

doctrines and dogmas they shall enforce, as essential to faith 
and salvation ? The church for years has been trying to reach 
a consensus as to the essential doctrines of Christianity and 
has hopelessly failed in its efforts. Is the acceptance of the 
old theological formulas of organized Christianity as to the 
existence of an evil power, of Hell and endless punishment to 
be enjoined upon heathen nations as a condition precedent to 
admission to the church and as the passport to the realms of 
the blessed, when the time comes for them to shuffle off this 
mortal coil? 

Will these missionaries be of one particular denomina- 
tion, or if not, to what extent shall they be representative of 
the 200 more or less divided and warring sects which comprise 
Christendom? Will they engage in rival proselyting, and thus 
perpetuate on the other side of the globe the feuds and doc- 
trinal controversies of the denominations they represent on 
this side of the ocean? And if so, what effect will all this have 
upon the heathen world? 

But, suppose this laymen's movement be conducted on non- 
sectarian lines, as an effort on the part of lay Christians to take 
up and complete the church's unfinished missionary work, and 
to meet the spiritual needs of this age by carrying Jesus' gospel 
to every creature. Is it to be carried on outside denominational 
lines and entirely independent of church affiliations, and if so, 
how shall the movement be organized and conducted? If the 
Christian religion is to be thus carried to the heathen world 
and converts made, into what kind of a society or religious 
body shall they be organized, and upon what profession of 
faith ? What shall be the form of worship adopted, what ini- 
tiatory rights and what rules and regulations, or ecclesiastical 
organization and discipline are to be adopted? Do not such 
questions carry their own answer? Would not a movement of 
this kind be doomed to failure from the outset ? 

To be successful a propaganda for Christianity, as contem- 

317 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

plated by the laymen's missionary movement, must be waged 
on behalf of a united Christianity, not as representative of a 
multitude of different branches hopelessly divided on questions 
of apostoHc succession, validity of orders, doctrinal beliefs, 
dogmas, ritual and theological formulas. It must be backed by 
a church as one in its doctrinal beliefs and its means and 
methods of realizing the religion of Christ, and not on behalf 
of a church that has fallen into feebleness and become a dis- 
integrating force. On any other basis the movement will be 
a waste of time and money. 

Rival Claims. 

The laymen's missionary movement brings the Christian 
world face to face with the great question as to the truth 
of rival Christian denominations. As a highly organized and 
finely articulated hierarchial system, legislative, administrative, 
able to comprehend men and nations and cover the whole life 
from the cradle to the grave, the Roman church stands as the 
most permanent form of the Christian religion. It has an un- 
broken existence of seventeen centuries; it stands pre-eminent 
as a historical institution possessed of an august Catholicism; 
it represents on the largest scale the continuity of religion in 
history. Its following of 230,000,000 nearly equals the total 
following of all the other Christian sects in the world. It 
claims to be the one universal Church of Christ. The Pope 
stands as the spiritual sovereign of this church, which claims 
to be the true source of Christian unity, of law and of order, 
and possessed of the right and authority to direct the energies, 
formulate the judgments and determine the faith of the church. 

To disrupt Christian unity as was done by the exodus of 
the Greek church and later the Protestant denominations; tq 
build up obstacles to the healing of the breach, whether from 
one cause or another, Rome denounces as the sin of sins against 

318 



THE LAYMEN'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT 

Christ. And the argument by which this conclusion is sup- 
ported is well-nigh irresistible. If the protest of both Orient 
and Occident was aimed at vital conditions, the supremacy of 
St. Peter, it was wrong. Away from Peter, away from the 
church ; this was the law of the early church. 

But if the protest of both Greek and Protestant was aimed 
not against the supremacy of St. Peter but against policies and 
administrative acts, matters in which the Papacy does not claim 
immunity from error, then, as Archbishop Ireland forcibly 
urges, they should have remained a protest and never a sep- 
aration. The logic of this position is incontrovertible. So 
long as the supremacy of St. Peter is acknowledged, with- 
drawal from the Roman church, under whatever provocation, 
real or fictitious, is indefensible. Time does not make it right, 
however long the separation lasts. In the eyes of the Cath- 
olic hierarchy. Protestantism is a schism or sect in rebellion 
to the sovereignty of the Pope. 

If we believe that God has committed His Truth, His 
Spirit and His redemptive agencies to the keeping of this 
peculiar and pre-eminent church, then the control of these 
40,000 missionaries and the disbursement of this $2,000,000,000 
proposed to be raised to convert the rest of the world within 
this generation belongs of right to the Roman Catholic church, 
and the laymen's missionary movement should be conducted 
under her auspices. 

For centuries Rome reigned without a rival. Had not her 
infallibility in doctrine become so mated in the 15th century 
with inefficiency in conduct as to result in the completest break- 
down in the matter of faith and morals that Christian Europe 
has ever known, there would have been no Protestant Refor- 
mation ; her unity as the one universal Church of Christ would 
have continued unbroken to this day. But the authority of 
the church forbade the reform of the church from within, 

319 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

and the Protestant Reformation thus became the tomb of the 
Roman embodiment of church unity. The struggles of the 
reformers for rehgious hberty and the creative spirit of that 
reformation, while it broke Roman church unity, crushing its 
supremacy, nevertheless saved the religion. 

And what part has the Roman Catholic church had in the 
making of modern civilization by virtue of which it can right- 
fully urge that the work of evangelizing the world should be 
conducted under its auspices? 

"The centuries that have elapsed since the fifteenth cen- 
tury ended have been without doubt the most eventful, fruitful, 
momentous in the history of men; and their history has been 
the history of Christian people. The record of their material 
progress has been a record of marvels. America has been dis- 
covered, colonized, peopled; Asia has been opened up, almost 
conquered and annexed ; Africa has been explored, and is being 
pierced and penetrated on all sides, and in the Australian con- 
tinent and islands the seeds of new states have been plentifully 
grown. 

"The European States, with certain significant exceptions, 
are mightier than they were four centuries ago, better ordered, 
more moral, more populous, freer, wealthier ; and the poorest 
of the countries has become rich and full of comforts as com- 
pared with Europe in the days of the Black Death. 

"But the conquests and colonizations effected by Catholic 
States, so far as order, progress and human well-being are con- 
cerned, have been chapters of disaster and failure. The pro- 
gressive peoples have been the non-Catholic ; they have been the 
least troubled with revolution; have had the most happy, well 
ordered commonwealths; have enjoyed the most freedom. 

"That were, indeed, a strange and satirical theodicy that 
should exhibit God as working poverty and revolution in the 
nations that had accepted or been forced to accept the author- 

320 



THE LAYMEN'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT 

ity of His own infallibile church, while sending fulness of life 
and grace and freedom into those that had deserted and dis- 
owned it."^ 

These conclusions drawn from the history of the past three 
hundred years by Dr. Fairbairn, the Roman Curia by no means 
accepts as true or anywhere near the truth. On the contrary, 
in the Pope's recent encyclical, referring to St. Charles Barro- 
meo as the great champion of Catholic reform as opposed to 
the Protestant and "heretical" reform of Luther, we find Prot- 
estantism charged with the most grievous crimes. Its respon- 
sibility for all that was bad in the history of the civilization of 
the past three centuries is set forth in the most emphatic terms. 
Says the encyclical : 

"They called the perversion of faith and morals reform, and 
themselves reformers. In truth they were seducers, and while 
they exhausted the strength of Europe in strife and war, they 
prepared the way for the upheaval and decadence of modern 
times, in which three sorts of strife that were formerly sep- 
arated and from which the Church always emerged victorious, 
were united — the bloody struggles of early times, the internal 
plague of heresies, and finally, under the name of evangelical 
freedom, that corruption of morals and perversion of discip- 
line to which the Middle Ages hardly reached." This is a 
sweeping indictment of Protestantism, and drawn, mind you, 
not in the sixteenth century, but in the twentieth century. 
Which is right, the Pope or Dr. Fairbairn? 

At all events may we not safely conclude that the laymen's 
missionary movement will not be a propaganda for Roman 
Catholicism or be conducted under the direction of the Roman 
Catholic Church ? May we not surmise that it will not under- 
take to extend either Roman Catholic religious rule or the 
Roman Catholic type of Christian civilization? On the other 

^Catholicism, Roman and Anglican, pages 196 and 198. 

321 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

hand, may it not be assumed with equal positiveness that any 
missionary movement conducted by the Roman CathoUc 
Church, having as its purpose the christianizing of the heathen 
world, will not be conducted under the auspices of the laymen's 
missionary movement? 

Passing Protestantism. 

Protestantism divides with the Roman church the religious 
supremacy of the Christian world. Its polity is diametrically 
opposed to Roman polity. In this age of revolutionary thought 
and action, both are opposed by the modern thinking world. 
The echoes of the bitter struggle of the Protestant reformers 
have scarce died away with the lapse of years, and in this criti- 
cal and skeptical age there has been and is now taking place 
a great falling away from both Roman and Protestant church 
communions. Ended is the religious warfare which Protest- 
antism waged against the sovereignty of the Roman Pontiff as 
the one divinely constituted Church of Christ. Passed are the 
confused years of reconstruction, creed building and church 
making which Protestantism reached in its rise. Fulfilled is its 
providential mission ; attained its end, achieved its work. 

Protestantism no less than Romanism has lost religious 
authority. It has failed to master the controlling forces of 
life. It lacks authority in the family, and controls over the 
family life. It has lost influence over modern thought and 
over the nations it has created and made free. Worldliness, 
and greed, and selfishness, and unbelief have crept into the 
church whose usefulness has been ruined. Multitudes of peo- 
ple have withdrawn from its fold. It has suffered a tremen- 
dous loss of power and moral leadership. Its worn-out theo- 
logical formulas have lost their hold upon the modern world ; 
they repel rather than attract the common people to its com- 
munion. Its ministry is becoming decadent, the age of ser- 
mons is fast passing away. And in this enumeration of the 

322 



THE LAYMEN'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT 

failures, not of Christianity, but of the organized institutions 
which misinterpret Christianity to this age, nothing by general 
consent is deemed more fatal to religious efficiency everywhere 
than the loss of the unity of the church. 

A divided Christendom can only imperfectly bear witness 
to the essential unity of Christianity. 

Christianity has lost standing and moral leadership in a 
great part of the world in large measure because of its unfortu- 
nate divisions. Such divisions will never be healed while one 
church maintains a holier-than-thou attitude. Jesus prayed 
for oneness of His followers that the world might believe. 
Christian unity is an imperative necessity ; it is a condition pre- 
cedent to the successful issue of a comprehensive missionary 
movement among heathen nations. Christians must of neces- 
sity compose their differences at home before they can success- 
fully undertake to establish Christ's kingdom among alien 
races. The prospect of their doing so has already been dis- 
cussed. 

The inevitable consequence of a divided Christianity is a 
weak Christianity, ineffectual for the work to which it is com- 
mitted by its great Founder. Lack of unity among the several 
Protestant denominations reflected in different degrees be- 
tween crowding, struggling churches of the same name, and 
by a wasteful competition within the same denomination in the 
same locality involves a degenerative process which Christian- 
ity has need to overcome before it can be in a position to carry 
on an aggressive warfare against heathenism, either at home 
or abroad. 

International missionary work such as the laymen's mission- 
ary movement contemplates requires something more than the 
weak support which separate and more or less warring sects 
will be able to give it. Time was when the Catholic church 
was able to control the whole mechanism of society. But that 
age has passed. The church has lost its temporal rule over 

323 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

nations and its spiritual authority over more than one-half of 
the Christian world. Protestantism has frayed out into so 
many separate strands that these look like ravellings and at 
most have scarce strength to bear the strain of holding their 
own memberships together, much less to draw the great masses 
of the heathen world into the Christian fold. 

Organized Christianity has been conducting a missionary 
propaganda for hundreds of years. Enormous sums of money 
have been contributed by Christian believers, reaching in the 
aggregate over $25,000,000 annually during recent years. A 
force of over 20,000 missionaries is now employed in the vari- 
ous countries open to missionary effort. What are the results ? 
Take China, for instance, as a representative mission field. 
China contains 400,000,000 souls, nearly one-half of the num- 
ber which the laymen's missionary movement proposes to bring 
to Christ in the next thirty-five years. Here we find a body 
of 6,388 Protestant missionary workers. Thus far, the masses 
in China have been unaffected by Christianity and are likely to 
continue so unless Roman Catholics and Protestants can agree 
in their missionary propagandas and end the warfare which has 
existed between them. 

As a result of the past sixty years of missionary endeavor 
China shows a meagre 200,000 names on the church books, a 
drop in the bucket as compared with her teeming millions. 
Under present methods of carrying on missionary work abroad, 
it costs in some districts in China $10.57 to expend $1 for the 
good of the cause, that is, directly among the Chinese. Out of 
every dollar raised for foreign missions, scarcely one-quarter 
ever reaches the heathen in any personal or effective form. 

At the World's Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago in 
1893, B. B. Nagarkar, a Brahman layman, expressed himself 
on the subject of Christian missionaries in these emphatic 
words : 

"Sad will be the day for India when Christian missionaries 

324 



THE LAYMEN'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT 

cease to come; for we have much to learn about Christ and 
Christian civiHzation. They do some good work. But if con- 
verts are the measure of their success, we have to say that their 
work is a failure. Little do you dream that your money is ex- 
pended in spreading abroad nothing but Christian dogmatism, 
Christian bigotry, Christian pride and Christian exclusiveness. 
I entreat you to expend one-tenth only of your vast sacrifices 
in sending out to our country unsectarian, broad missionaries 
who will devote their energy to educating our men and women. 
Educated men will understand Christ better than those whom 
you convert to the narrow creed of some cant Christianity." 
In Japan there are thirteen Methodist churches, only three 
self-supporting, to show for years of missionary labor and 
thousands of dollars expended. The Baptists are doing no 
better relatively to the missionaries employed and the money 
spent. How great is organized Christianity's loss of influence 
and power abroad, is evidenced by the judgment pronounced 
upon it by a Japanese recently : 

"It is a sad thing," says the Christian World of September 
25, 1909, "to hear such words as these of a Japanese recently 
spoken to a friend of the writer : 'Christianity is greatly dis- 
counted in Japan because of its seeming impotency in your own 
country.' He then referred to the corrupt and pagan condition 
of our own cities, remarking that the missionary was com- 
pletely handicapped in Japan by these revelations of the im- 
potency of Christianity to redeem the so-called Christian coun- 
tries from paganism." 

And Dr. Green, prominent as a minister and as a profound 
student of theology, who has recently been in the Orient, mak- 
ing investigations along the line of missionary work in that 
country, makes these most significant remarks : 

"If denominationalism is a misfortune at home, it is the ab- 
solute paralysis of foreign missions. And so in Japan the mis- 
sionaries have learned the wisdom of necessity. Divisional 
lines are far more thinly drawn there than at home. They 

325 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

might almost disappear were it not for the fact that denomina- 
tional support at home depends upon denominational orthodoxy 
abroad. But the Japanese are too uniformly courteous to be 
exclusive even in their conversion. 

"The Christianity of theological discussions, of denomina- 
tions, cannot be built up on imaginary distinctions or the 
archaic creeds, whose usefulness, if they ever had any, long 
since passed away. Not the preaching of subtle theory, but of 
the universal gospel of high and holy living, the supremest 
epitaph of Jesus of Nazareth of whom it was said, 'He went 
about doing good,' is the Gospel that can never fail. 

"Had we been able to approach Japan two decades ago 
with a Christianity united in its operation, agreed in its dog- 
mas, one in its structure, this story need not have been written. 
Had we possessed a united rehgion instead of one hundred and 
fifty-seven different sorts and kinds of religion — even though 
our practical morality might not have consistently coincided 
with much of our theoretical doctrine — Prince Ito's plan of 
making the Japanese nation a Christian nation upon the ac- 
cession of its coming new ruler might have been carried out. 
What would have been of far more value, the mind and the 
heart of Japan might have turned at just the psychological 
moment to the lofty and impressive ideals of Christianity."^ 

Japan has taken her place among civilized nations. But 
for centuries she has had to meet the conflicting claims and the 
ecclesiastical warfare of contending sects. She finds Christian- 
ity even more confusedly divided. In a recent volume entitled 
"Fifty Years of New Japan," compiled by Count Okuma, this 
versatile Japanese statesman refers to prevailing conditions in 
that country in these words : 

"Japan at present may be likened to a sea into which a hun- 
dred currents of Oriental and Occidental thoughts — some only 
conceived, others partially or v/holly executed, during the past 
century or more — have poured in and, not having yet effected 
a fusion, are raging wildly, tossing, warring and rearing." 

But in matters of religion for organized Christianity to 

^Hamptons Magazine, Dec, 1909. 

326 



THE LAYMEN'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT 

make moral acceptability depend upon intellectual assent to 
what reason pronounces as impossible, is superstition. So de- 
clares a Japanese university graduate and man of letters, who 
further says: "We are all throwing away our hereditary 
superstitions for the clearer guidance of science and intelligent 
reason." The growth of Japan during the last half century has 
been the marvel of all history. Not less wonderful is the free- 
dom which Japan has achieved from all hampering ancient ties 
and her successful appropriation of the best of western civiliza- 
tion. "Japan's test will be practicality," says Dr. Green. "She 
will be intolerant of mere theological definition, of dogmatic 
discussion. Her rule of choice will be the one given by the 
Master of Men : *By their fruits shall ye know them' " 

Since Christian Science has discarded superstition, and not 
only reconciles reason and revelation, but demonstrates the 
scientific correctness of its teachings by works of healing and 
reformation; since it presents a church united in its faith and 
worship and works, and a religion able to stand the test of 
practicality; is there not every probability that it will be the 
very religion which Japan will ultimately adopt as its national 
religion, on the principle laid down by the Great Teacher. 

To the intensely practical mind of the Japanese, the fruitage 
which Christian Science presents in the physical, moral and 
material well-being of its followers is bound to make a power- 
ful and convincing appeal, inasmuch as such fruitage ultimates 
in that peace, security and happiness of society and of the 
nation which is the aim of the enlightened statesmanship of 
that country. 

Measuring Christian Science by the old forms of religion, 
be it Mohammedanism, Confucianism, Buddhism or institu- 
tional Christianity of the present day; comparing doctrine 
with doctrine; modern forms and methods of worship with a 
bigoted and mediaeval ecclesiasticism ; contrasting administra- 
tion with administration ; tested by practical results as exhibited 

327 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

in the reformation of the sinful, the restoration of the sick to 
health and the happy lives of its followers, is there any ques- 
tion as to which of the religions of the world Japan will ulti- 
mately choose as its own? And may not Japan, superior type 
though it is, be taken as typical of all the nations? 

The Vital Issue. 

The question as to the truth of rival churches or the com- 
petency of either Roman Catholic or Protestant churches to 
conduct this grand missionary movement does not touch the 
fundamental consideration. The vital issue which the laymen's 
missionary movement involves and which every layman who is 
asked to subscribe to the fund proposed to be raised must con- 
sider is this : What is the form in which the religion of Jesus 
Christ can be most effectively presented for the consideration 
and acceptance of heathen nations ? 

In Judaism the God of the priesthood loved the official sanc- 
tities of the temple, the altar, the sacrifice, the incense, the 
priest and his garments and bells and breastplates, the sabbath, 
the new moon, the feast and the solemn assembly. Christ 
Jesus placed the emphasis upon moral and spiritual sanctities, 
the living temple; the whole people constituted a priesthood, 
they were kings and priests unto God. The sacrifices of the 
broken spirit and the contrite heart, the law written in the 
heart, the worship expressed in obedience, the obedience that 
consisted in doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly 
with God — this was the type of religion Jesus enjoined upon 
His followers. 

In the New Testament ideal of religion, God appears as a 
God of mercy and grace, the Father of man, who needs not to 
be appeased, but is gracious, propitious, finds the propitiation, 
provides the propitiator. His own Son is the only sacrifice, 
priest and mediator appointed of God to achieve the reconcilia- 
tion of man. Man is God's son ; filial love is his primary duty. 

328 



THE LAYMEN'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT 

Worship does not depend on sacred persons, places or rites, 
but is a thing of spirit and truth. The best prayer is secret and 
personal. The man who best pleases God is not the scrupulous 
Pharisee but the penitent publican. 

There is very little evidence in the New Testament to show 
that Jesus ever laid any special emphasis upon the idea of the 
church, as an organized institution. Only twice is the term 
attributed to Him. In the one instance it occurs in a local or 
congregational sense and once in the universal, but only as a 
means of defining His own sole activity and supremacy. The 
early Christian churches which were formed to perpetuate 
Jesus' work and extend God's kingdom did not have any cor- 
porate relation to each other. They were divided by differ- 
ences which preclude the idea of an official infallible head; 
supremacy belonged to no man. The priesthood ceased to be 
official by being made universal. The Christians' society or 
brotherhood of Christ was itself a priesthood. The sacrifices 
it offered were spiritual in nature, living men, the gift and 
beneficences which are acceptable to God, and the praise God 
loves; these are the obligations laid upon Jesus' followers. 

"The Christian religion," says Dr. Fairbairn, "stood among 
the ancient faiths as a strange and extraordinary thing — a 
priestless religion without the symbols, sacrifices, ceremonies, 
officiate, hitherto held save by prophetic Hebraism to be the re- 
ligious all and all. And it so stood because its God did not 
need to be propitiated but was propitious, supplying the only 
priest and sacrifice equal to His honor and the sins and wants 
of man. In that hour God became a new Being to man, and 
man knew himself to be more than a mere creature and sub- 
ject — a Son of the loving God." 

"The work of Roman Catholicism," continues Dr. Fair- 
bairn, "may have been needed, for man is incapable of transi- 
tions at once suciden and absolute; the construction of Chris- 
tianity through the media of the older religions was a neces- 

329 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

sary prelude to its construction by a spirit and through a con- 
sciousness of its own creation. The absolute ideal had in order 
to be intelligible to use constituted and familiar vehicles; 
but only that it might win the opportunity of fashioning vehicles 
worthier of its nature and fitter for its end."'^ 

Is it, then, the intention of those in charge of the laymen's 
missionary movement to carry on a propaganda for such a re- 
ligion as that which Jesus taught and embodied in His life, by 
means and methods worthier of its nature and fitter to its ends 
than those which organized Christianity supplies? Or will it 
blindly and fatuously accept the doctrine of organized Chris- 
tianity that man is an alien in this world; that he is a fallen 
being, hopelessly wicked and tending downward by nature; 
that God is ahenated from His children and must be propi- 
tiated by sacrifice, vicarious or otherwise, and if so, will it 
instruct its missionary representatives to undertake the fruit- 
less task of trying to secure the acceptance of these doctrines 
by the heathen world together with other obscure dogmas and 
archaic creeds the result of compromises in turbulent ecumen- 
ical councils? 

Will the only offer to the wretched and downtrodden be the 
hope of a future compensation in a world to come, about which 
no definite information can be vouchsafed ? Will the mission- 
aries offer to the poor heathen, multitudes of whom are lodged 
in an imperfect, feeble and suffering body, any prospect of 
relief this side of the grave, or will they teach that deliverance 
must come through death? 

The western world has emphatically rejected those notions 
and beliefs because inconsistent with a human, civilized or 
worthy idea of God as the Creator of the human race. Has the 
laymen's missionary movement any valid reason for believing 
that the eastern world will be ready to accept what the western 

^Catholicism, Roman and Anglican, page 167. 

330 



THE LAYMEN'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT 

world has rejected? The ordinary consolations of institutional 
Christianity no longer satisfy intelligent people whose lives 
are broken by sickness or the premature death of those they 
love. Will a religion which offers such consolation be likely 
to win converts any more readily among the Asiatic nations 
than among our own people ? 

Theologians who thought they knew the mind of God and 
could understand and define the terms upon which deific jus- 
tice would be administered have condemned the greater part 
of mankind to eternal torment. Will this sort of scholastic 
theology be the kind that the missionary workers will be called 
upon to teach and enforce? Or, on the other hand, will they 
seek to maintain the claims of the church to the exclusive pos- 
session of the means of deliverance from the wrath of God and 
try to use this authority as a restraining influence over the 
sinners of the heathen world, and as a rneans of bringing them 
to adopt the Christian religion ? 

In all seriousness can these missionaries make such preten- 
sions? But, assume for a moment that they refuse to teach 
these perverse and repudiated doctrines, the question would 
immediately arise, what particular church doctrines will they 
substitute? The trouble is that this question is one that neither 
they nor the churches which they represent are able to answer 
in a form generally acceptable to the various branches of or- 
ganized Christianity. 

The missionaries who embark from our shores leave behind 
them conflicts still raging between materialism and Christian 
idealism. This age is in revolt against time-worn and out-lived 
religious dogmas, waves of reform are sweeping through and 
over organized Christianity and threaten to submerge it. These 
missionaries must also realize, to some extent at least, the 
serious effect which modern philosophy, ethical theories, social 
hopes and democratic principles are having upon organized 
Christianity. Conscious of the fact that traditional dogmas 

331 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

and formal creeds are being more and more discredited in this 
country, that a large proportion of the population, and par- 
ticularly in Protestant countries, have abandoned the churches 
of to-day, would not these missionaries be likely to lose heart 
and yield to a feeling of great discouragement at the very 
outset of their task? 

As representatives of the religion of Christ Jesus the ques- 
tion recurs : with what credentials shall they be invested by 
organized Christianity? What are the doctrines and discipline, 
the means and methods of realizing religion which will com- 
mend the unanimous approval of the different churches which 
contribute to their support and which they are to make use of 
in building up Christian churches in foreign lands? 

An authoritative church has tried to force everybody within 
its reach to hold the same opinions and unite in the same ob- 
servances. Will these missionaries seek to enforce the author- 
ity of that church upon all heathen converts ? Will it mean for 
heathendom submission to the authority of the Roman church 
or to the authority and ritual of the Protestant Episcopal 
church? Or must heathen converts subscribe to the tenets and 
doctrinal beliefs of the Methodist church, whose provisions 
for discipline in the regulation of their social life they must 
accept? Or will this force of 40,000 workers be so apportioned 
that some will work to make Roman Catholic converts, others 
to make Baptist converts, others Lutheran converts, etc. ? And 
if they succeed in building up churches in foreign lands how 
will they escape the competitions, the rivalries, the discords 
and controversies of organized Christianity which obtain in 
the western world? 

Diversity of religious belief in America is expressed in 
two hundred or more different Christian denominations or 
sects. All of them profess to worship the same God and to ac- 
cept the teachings of the same Bible, and yet are unable to come 
to any agreement as to doctrinal belief, dogma, creed, ritual or 

332 



THE LAYMEN'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT 

polity, or to command the devotion of more than a fraction of 
the population. Will Christian church unity under these con- 
ditions be any more likely to prevail in heathen than in Chris- 
tian lands? Or will these missionaries of the laymen's move- 
ment undertake to create a new religious caste, some ecclesias- 
tical class, or exclusive religious sect founded on a rite, and 
supported by threats of eternal damnation, or by promises of 
a future state of blessedness, and if so, would it prove a more 
successful religious propaganda than is now conducted by any 
of the numberless sects into which organized Christianity is 
now divided? 

The fear of hell as a deterrent force, or the hope of heaven 
as an inducement to become Christians, have become less and 
less efficient or successful in society at large. There is a grow- 
ing multitude of men and women who would hardly feel any 
appreciable loss of motive power toward good or away from 
evil, if heaven was blotted out of the firmament of human 
belief, and hell destroyed by its own internal fires. The pre- 
vailing Christian conceptions of these two places have hardly 
any more influence upon the minds of educated people in these 
days than the mythologies of the ancients, and this would be 
quite as true of the nations of the far East as it is of this 
country. 

Christian Science Considered. 

The question, therefore, persistently recurs, what is the 
form or manner in which the religion of Christ Jesus can best 
be presented to the world, by means of which this great lay- 
men's missionary movement can carry on the most effective 
propaganda for Christianity? 

If it is not to be found either in Roman Catholicism or in 
Protestantism; if ecclesiastical systems constructed by men 
find no sanction in the teachings of Jesus or the institutions of 
the early Christian church; if, as the Churchman pertinently 

333 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

remarks, "these systems have rent the Lord's body in its out- 
ward and visible form, and hindered the united witness of the 
church to the unity of the divine and human which it pos- 
sesses in Christ, through Christ, and from Christ" ; then 
through what means and methods can the Christian rehgion be 
reahzed in the Hves of its followers as to become the effective 
means whereby the heathen nations may be won to Christianity, 
won as Jesus has commanded ? It is a question which those at 
the back of this laymen's missionary movement must squarely 
face and settle at the outset as a condition precedent to any 
successful attempt to secure the necessary financial backing 
from the great body of intelligent business men in this country. 

The position of the Christian Science Church, which is the 
antithesis, in many respects, of both Roman and Protestant 
churches, becomes, therefore, a matter worthy of considera- 
tion. Is it a relevant form of the Christian religion? Are its 
means and methods worthier of the nature and fitter to the 
ends of that religion than that of organized Christianity? Let 
us take a look in an impartial and dispassionate manner at some 
of the facts in this connection, from the standpoint of a lay 
observer : 

"This wordy world," says Cardinal ^Manning, "can drown 
all testimony except the witness of visible acts. Words are 
transitory things, but acts leave their token behind them." 
The Great Teacher enunciated this same thought thus: "By 
their fruits ye shall know them." The Christian Science 
Church offers the world not simply mere doctrine, but the 
demonstration of its verity and vitality by acts and fruitage 
which can be seen and known of all men. We find here a 
church which unites instead of divides men into a multitude of 
competing religious sects. It exalts the moral and the spirit- 
ual worth of all humanity. It declares man's true relationship 
to God, it presents the Christ-Truth coupled with the demon- 
stration of its power to set men free, to accomplish complete 

334 



THE LAYMEN'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT 

redemption. It is free from ecclesiastical entanglements, free 
from the dogmas, traditions and institutions of organized 
Christianity, which for ages have been the subject of contro- 
versy and discord. It has undertaken to unify and is exempli- 
fying the unity and simplicity of the faith and works and 
worship of the early Christian church ; it is restoring the lost 
element of healing to Christianity. 

The Catholicism of the Catholic Church is large, but there 
is one still larger, the Catholicism of the Christian religion. 
The Christian Science Church exemplifies this larger Cathol- 
icism in that it presents the universalism of Christ instead of 
the specialism of the orthodox churches. It has furnished an 
exalted and worthy conception of God and a nobler view of the 
nature and destiny of man. It is a demonstrable religion known 
by its fruits, which are those of peace, and love, and freedom 
from the bondage of fear, and the domination of sin, disease 
and mortality. It is repeating the history of the early church, 
by proving itself the greatest missionary movement since the 
days of the Apostles. Already its followers are to be found in 
almost every country on the face of the globe; it is planting 
its churches and societies all over the world and doing this 
with a rapidity analogous to the spread of Christianity in the 
first few centuries of the Christian era. 

The Christian Science Church presents the spectacle of a 
church at peace with itself; united in doctrinal beliefs and its 
confession of faith; in its form of worship and in its organ- 
ization and methods of disciphne. It is based on the inspired 
word of God as found in the Holy Scriptures. It exalts the 
Christ-Truth ; its followers seek to know that Mind which was 
in Christ Jesus and to acquire the power to demonstrate Truth 
and so to present Jesus' test, "He that believeth in Me, the 
works that I do shall he do also." 

Where organized Christianity is weak, by reason of its 
sectarianism, its divisions and controversies, we find the Chris- 

335 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

tian Science Church to be strong in its freedom from all eccle- 
siastical or institutional forms, ceremonies, rituals, creeds or 
theological bickerings. Where orthodox Christianity is weak, 
in that blind behef has destroyed its power to perform, except 
in part, the work committed to it by its great Founder, Chris- 
tian Science is strong, in that it accepts Jesus' commission to 
not only preach the gospel but to heal the sick. It honors Jesus 
by fulfilling the commission in its entirety. 

Where organized Christianity is weak in spirituality, is de- 
pendent upon adventitious aids, and is fast degenerating into a 
mere social club, devoid of spiritual power, the Christian 
Science Church is strong in the strength of a vital, demon- 
strable religion, which manifests itself in the happy lives of its 
adherents, its crowded Sabbath services and week-night testi- 
mony meetings and lectures, at which, in some instances, as 
many as 1,500 or more persons have risen at a time to testify 
to their personal experience of the healing and saving power 
of the Truth which Christian Science has brought to this age. 

Where organized Christianity fails in the religious educa- 
tion of its membership, the Christian Science Church is pre- 
eminent by reason of its systematic study of the Bible to an ex- 
tent unequaled by any other religious denomination in existence. 

The Christian Science Church is a united church through- 
out the whole range of its activities whether conducted in this 
country or abroad. Wherever it has secured a foothold the 
same unity of faith and form of worship and activity obtains. 
If we study its organization and growth, we find the Christian 
Science Church avoids the economic wastes of organized Chris- 
tianity, occasioned by needless duplication of churches and the 
consequent excessive cost of maintenance. Furthermore, being 
free from rival sects or parties within its own organization it 
is not subject to the competition incident to the different 
branches of organized Christianity, and the same favorable 

336 



THE LAYMEN'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT 

conditions would obtain in missionary work conducted on its 
behalf in foreign countries. 

Can there be any doubt in the minds of those at the head 
of the laymen's missionary movement that the world of to-day 
is as ready to accept that kind of propaganda for Christianity 
as it was nineteen centuries ago? The cumulative evidence of 
such an acceptance on its part which the success of the Chris- 
tian Science movement affords, cannot well be overlooked in 
this connection. 

What this age demands is a religion based on the healing 
and saving power of the Truth which Christ Jesus came to 
reveal. It asks for a demonstrable religion that is reflected in 
the personal experience of men and women everywhere who 
have been delivered by it from the bondage of sin, disease and 
mortality. It demands a religion which is not one of mere 
creed and dogma and institution ; which does not express itself 
in opposition to the great movements of modern society, such 
as democracy and social or economic idealism, nor condemn a 
zeal for education or the spirit of modern research. It de- 
mands a religion that seeks, first and foremost, to unite all 
men in the knowledge and love of God and in the understand- 
ing of man as made in God's image and likeness, wherein is 
to be found the basis for the true brotherhood of man and that 
universalism of the religion of Christ Jesus, which will usher 
in the reign of "peace on earth, good will to men" of which the 
angels sang nineteen centuries ago. 

A missionary propaganda for the extension of such a re- 
ligion would indeed be worth while. Could it be considered 
representative of organized Christianity as it stands to-day? 

Some Conclusions. 

The time is ripe for the second coming of the Son of Man 
in the demonstration of the power of the Truth which makes 
men free. The heathen world is ready to welcome deliverance 

337 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

from the despotisms of earth, from the superstitions and an- 
cient dogmas which have so long held them in bondage to 
error. Among the people of Asiatic nations there are many 
indications of an awakened consciousness. The far East has 
been absorbing the practical benefits of our civilization; it is 
developing both educationally and industrially at a tremendous 
rate. Religious antagonism is becoming less pronounced. De- 
velopments along these lines are a hopeful sign and portent of 
the successful introduction of a pure type of the Christian re- 
ligion, when presented under proper auspices. 

Scholastic theology has made of the Christian religion a 
pessimistic philosophy of life; it has depicted the terrors of a 
future state of torment as a motive to repentance, and sought 
to win the world to Christ by a system of rewards and punish- 
ments which find no sanction in the Scriptures. The Christian 
Science new-old theology is one of optimism ; it exalts the 
spiritual worth and dignity of man; it destroys the illusions 
which have held the human race in bondage to fear and disease 
and mortality ; it demonstrates the heaHng, saving power of the 
gospel of Christ. If placed side by side with the Christianity of 
the so-called orthodox churches, divided, distracted, schismatic, 
weakened by internal divisions and competitions, would any 
doubt exist as to the choice which heathenism would make, any 
question as to which type of missionary the laymen's mission- 
ary movement should send abroad and with what credentials 
if it is to accompHsh its task of inducing the rest of the human 
race to embrace Christianity within a reasonably early period 
of time. 

Is it not apparent, then, that through the Christian Science 
Church, the Christian religion can be made practical and ac- 
ceptable to heathendom, judging not only from a spiritual, but 
also from a purely utilitarian standpoint? 

Were a body of 40,000 Christian Science practitioners sent 
abroad to demonstrate the healing power of the gospel of Christ 

338 



THE LAYMEN'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT 

as it is being demonstrated in this country upon an individual, 
self-supporting basis, in the simple unobtrusive forms and 
methods of the Christian Science propaganda; were this mis- 
sionary movement to be conducted through the channels open 
to Christian Science in foreign lands, where it already has a 
foothold; were it backed by a fund of $55,000,000 per annum 
for the next thirty-five years, is there not a strong probabiHty, 
amounting to certainty, that Japan would be among the first to 
adopt the Christian Science type of the Christian religion on 
the ground of its practicability, and thus become a Christian 
nation? And would not other heathen nations follow its ex- 
ample ; in fact, would not a greater work of Christian evangel- 
ization be thus accomplished in the next thirty-five years than 
through any other means or methods which it would be pos- 
sible for the laymen's missionary movement to adopt or employ ? 

What is the real, the vital significance of this proposed 
grand latter-day laymen's missionary movement? Does it not 
bring us fairly and squarely face to face with the great ques- 
tion of church unity, which we have discussed at some length 
in a previous chapter? Does not the very proposition itself 
place a tremendous emphasis upon the necessity which organ- 
ized Christianity is under to compose its sectarian differences, 
to cast away its outlived theological creeds and dogmas and 
doctrines and to stand shoulder to shoulder in the work of 
converting the heathen world to the Christianity of the New 
Testament type. In thus helping the heathen, Christianity will 
help itself in a most effectual way. 

"The recovery of ourselves from the sin of division," says 
the Churchman, "is the grave problem that is before Christen- 
dom and is blocking the progress of the kingdom of God on 
earth." 

The laymen's missionary movement, if it means anything, 
means the dawn of a new day in Christian evangelization. It 
means that the religion of Jesus Christ is greater than mere 

359 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

sect or creed or dogma and doctrine ; that the creed of Christ 
and the gospel of the New Testament is the fundamental basis 
of agreement upon which alone the church can hope to conduct 
its missionary operations successfully. An awakening is taking 
place in Christendom. The conviction is becoming more pre- 
valent that Christianity must become united or else it must 
confront a more serious question than the saving of the 
heathen, even the preservation of its very existence as a re- 
ligious organization. The laymen's missionary workers can- 
not undertake to meet on foreign territory to duplicate the 
rivalries, the discords and the combats of divergent sects, 
quarreling among themselves as to which has the better brand 
of Christianity to offer. Such a condition of affairs would 
only invite the contempt and derision of those they are trying 
to save. 

The conclusion is irresistible. Organized Christianity can 
never bring about the brotherhood of man, either on these 
shores or on any other shores, on the basis of its present sec- 
tarianism and institutionalism. God's judgment has been al- 
ready pronounced upon it for its great sin of division. The 
handwriting is upon the wall in characters which need no seer 
to interpret their meaning. 

The question becomes, therefore, a Ytry pertinent one in 
this connection : Is the Christian Science movement which is 
restoring to this age primitive Christianity with its lost ele- 
ment of healing, destined to become the medium of that great 
reconciliation of the Christian sects and for that grand con- 
sensus of Christian doctrine which will bind all the nations 
into one faith and brotherhood and bring all Christians into 
one church, one fold, with one Shepherd, the Christ of God, 
"of whose kingdom there shall be no end" ? 

Members of the Jury of the Vicinage, judge ye and make 
answer herein. 



340 



VI. 

HUMANITY: THE HEIR. 

Members of the Jury of the Vicinage : 

Here we near the end of our not untoilsome journey, as of 
one who has traversed many pathways and gathered the fruit- 
age of many a harvest field. And if you should have so far 
honored this endeavor of mine as to read what is written herein, 
and have found it written not altogether vainly, let me offer a 
concluding word, face to face. 

The task to which I have called you is a high and glorious 
one. It is to make answer concerning issues of transcendent 
interest to the whole human family; it is to voice a higher 
order of science, which shall not only be scientific but re- 
ligious ; it is to declare the truth which mankind is seeking to 
know and which some day will surely liberate the human mind 
from the tyranny of materialistic and academic formulas and 
abstract and arid creeds. 

It is a call to get below the outward sense of things to the 
realities veiled behind the symbols; to make those realities 
plain to human consciousness, so that to the man whose be^ 
liefs are firmly based upon his own eyesight, there may come 
enlargement of vision and a better understanding of the truth 
which underlies all phenomena and all thought. 

Multitudes of men and women everywhere, of unpreju- 
diced minds, athirst in the desert are seeking the water brooks 
and flowing fountains. Give them the water of life that it may 
be within them "a well of water springing up into everlasting 
life." 

341 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

Give them a nobler concept of God and man, that thus you 
may open the door to physical and spiritual freedom and so 
bring deliverance from that which binds and enslaves the 
spirit and robs life of its true heritage. They are my clients 
in this case; the plaintiffs in this action. They are the heirs 
of the ages whose birthright is truth and whose right it is to 
have dominion over all the earth. 

My clients are seeking light and freedom; withhold it not 
from them. Strike off the shackles which hamper the free 
exercise of the mind; set free the imprisoned thought. Amid 
the decay and wreckage of faded traditions and outworn dog- 
mas and creeds, let us construct a temple of Truth which will 
abide forever. Let us help to "ring out the false," to "ring 
in the true." 

Give to men and women that which will help them to live, 
and to live more truly. Give them leave to grow, leave to 
hope, and to hope truly. More and more are they longing for 
a brighter day. The hearts of men are going out with long- 
ing for some supreme good, for some unveiling of the true 
source of inspiration and strength, some revelation of divine 
wisdom; to find and know a living God with whom they may 
stand in an intimate and trustful relation. The world has 
waited long for a new word of hope, for a new evangel of 
cheer and blessing; for that which will liberate the lofty po- 
tentialities of the soul, and form and fashion anew the larger 
hopes and loftier ideals of life. Let us fhen bear a helpful 
part in removing the ignorance, the pride and the prejudice 
which have been for so long stumbling blocks in man's pro- 
gress, so that fresh powers, fresh beauties, new characteristics 
may mark the upward advancement of the human race. 

Bid every sufferer longing for better things, every captive 
in a dungeon, every slave bleeding under the lash, to come 
forth to light and liberty, to the enjoyment of their inalienable 
rights as sons and daughters of the Most High. Give men and 

342 



HUMANITY: THE HEIR 

women of every race and clime, in subjection to a more de- 
basing slavery than that of the African, but found on higher 
planes of existence, to know that the higher law of divine 
Mind will end all human bondage to laws of custom, belief 
and disease. 

"Then shall the reign of Mind commence on earth, 
And starting fresh, as from a second birth ; 
Man in the sunshine of the world's new spring, 
Shall walk transparent like some holy thing." 

Let us guard against attaching undue importance to ma- 
terialistic doctrines or of relying wholly upon the evidence 
of the physical senses, as expressed in the conclusions of 
natural science. Things of the Spirit are truly substantial to 
spiritual sense, even though natural science, based upon phys- 
ical phenomena solely, is unable to perceive them. The in- 
visible things of mind and spirit, while they cannot be shown 
under the lens of the microscope nor made to respond to chem- 
ical reagents, are yet the most potent forces in the world. 

Jesus Christ came to tell us what the Kingdom of Heaven 
really is. In many parables he tried to make it clear to us. 
He found no easy task, but it was His central message. His 
constant endeavor, to convey some sense of the reality and 
meaning of that Kingdom, and how it may be actually realized 
on earth. Hear these noble words written by Charles Cuth- 
bert Hall, prophetic of that new heaven and new earth to 
which Christian faith and hope has ever turned : 

"Christ has taught us to pray for the hastening of a new 
dispensation, for the passing away of the broken order, in 
which the will of God is not done, in which sickness and 
death are constant protests against His will, and for the com- 
ing in of the new heaven and the new earth, glorious with the 
kingship of Jesus realized upon it ; an earth in which there will 
be no more death, nor pain, nor sorrow, nor crying, no more 
of anything contrary to our Father's loving will. An earth in 
which His will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven." 

343 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

At no time since the beginning of the Christian era have 
spiritual forces been more powerfully at work than to-day in 
the vital struggles of humanity to keep God alive in its 
thought; to bring to earth the kingdom of heaven for which 
Jesus Christ wrought among men. Old structures of belief 
which for centuries have sheltered many a worthless creed 
or dogma or mere illusion, are crumbling into ruins. Falsity 
is melting away in the intellectual and religious climate of a 
wiser age, an age rising to the conception of man as a perfect 
being in conscious union with the entire scheme of existence, 
an age identical with perfect freedom and wherein man will 
respond to none but the highest motives. 

The world is beginning to understand that man is one with 
the universal Principle ; that he is made in the image and like- 
ness of the infinite Creator and reflects the divine intelligence 
and love; that the divinity within him — responsive to his in- 
vocation — can produce unending harmonies; that health and 
happiness are free to all. No longer ignorant of the forces, 
which in earlier ages seemed supernatural, man is learning to 
utilize the mighty powers both without and within himself. 
His birthright is dominion, not subjection. "He is an heir 
apparent in training; some day he will reign." 

Christian idealism sounds a newer, a more inspiring, more 
confident note in these days of spiritual awakening. It is 
the note of optimism, of mental power. The universe spells 
victory, not defeat. Man is an evolving soul upon the path 
of attainment. He may stand erect and looking at the uni- 
verse with fearless eyes, may assert his spiritual kinship with 
the infinite and come into the understanding of his divine 
rights and heaven-bestowed harmony. 

Christian Science has drawn up the Scriptures of the New 
World, the great canon of the Book of Hope, the true hope 
that hath its foundations laid in the knowledge of the Christ- 
Truth which frees the soul from its bondage to material sense. 

344 



HUMANITY: THE HEIR 

It comes as an evangel of these latter days, an evangel of hope 
and good cheer, a messenger of glad tidings which shall be 
to all people. In the language of one who will not be charged 
with over-partiality for the Christian Science cause: "it has 
revolutionized the lives of its followers; it has banished the 
gloom which has shadowed them; it has lifted them out of 
grief and care and doubt and fear and made their lives beauti- 
ful. It has brought healing, not only of the body but of the 
persecuted spirit of man ; it has banished his troubles and kept 
his life serene, sunny and contented." ^ 

Fear has put its curse upon the life of every human being. 
It is the great enemy which mankind has to fight. And the 
story of Christian Science is the story of the conquest of fear, 
not by hope only, which one has called **the pull of heaven," 
but by Truth, the Christ-Truth which makes man free indeed. 
It corrects the delusions, the errors of material sense and 
dispels the unnumbered fears which torment and afflict the 
human race. 

The veil is being lifted from the darkened understanding 
of every seeker after God. All the promises He has made, all 
the purposes He has revealed, are operative in the eternal 
present. They are not and never were confined to a limited 
people and a restricted period but embrace the whole human 
race. His word endureth unto all generations. 

Man is neither a bondservant nor a criminal ; he is a son. 
The real man is even now made in the image and likeness of 
God and is therefore of His essence. The old conception that 
humanity is doomed to destruction is giving place to the under- 
standing that it is the sin and not the sinner that must perish. 

This is the day of salvation — of the restoration to whole- 
ness of the entire man; an age when the world is beginning 
to realize that to "dwell in love" and so "dwell in God" not 



* Mark Twain, in Christian Science, pages 286-287. 

3i^ 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

only gives us the mastery over sin, sickness and death, but 
over the forces of nature and the powers of darkness — even that 
mastery which Jesus Christ demonstrated in His own day and 
generation. This is the priceless legacy which He bequeathed 
to His immediate followers and to all — even unto the end of 
the world — who should believe on Him who is the Way, the 
Truth and the Life, and who thus may come into harmony 
with the great law of the eternal Mind. 

Members of the Jury : 

This is the spring time of a new life for humanity in which 
the world is moving to new religious influences and impulses ; 
an era when men everywhere are beginning to realize their 
kinship with the Infinite. The dawn of a brighter day in 
human experience is upon us. Lead my clients out into the 
fields, into the fresh air of heaven, and say to them in the 
language of the author of the "New Word" : 

"This is the day of the buds. The winter is over, the spring 
is here, and the great life outside us is renewing itself again. 
We hope that it is telling us that our life, too, will be renewed, 
and that we shall go on from life to life, ever learning and 
knowing more and more of that Great Life that our forefathers 
called God." 



346 



VII. 
THE INFINITE END. 

IN that famous scene in Pilate's Judgment Hall where Jesus 
told the Roman Governor, ''Everyone that is of the 
Truth heareth my voice," Pilate asked the one momentous 
question of all the centuries : "What is Truth ?" It is a ques- 
tion the ages have always been asking. It is the all-absorbing 
inquiry of to-day. But our schools of philosophy are no nearer 
the solution of this infinite query than they were centuries 
ago, nor will the human intellect, even in its highest flights, 
ever reach the goal of eager pursuit until it rests in an unqual- 
ified acceptance of the spiritual unity and oneness of Truth as 
of God, who is eternal, unchangeable Truth, "the same yester- 
day, to-day and forever." 

The materialistic Roman Procurator cared little about the 
spiritual kingdom which Jesus came to establish ; he cared still 
less as to Jesus' claim to sonship with the infinite God of 
Truth, or the truth which Jesus taught, which was completely 
beyond his spiritual apprehension. Pilate did not take the 
trouble to wait for an answer to his half-wearied, half-con- 
temptuous and wholly cynical demand, yet he needed not, nor 
does this age need, any other answer than the Christ-man who 
in that fateful hour stood before this Roman governor and 
declared his mission to bear witness to the Truth ; nay, more, 
who said : *T am the Truth." 

He stands now, as then, the chosen messenger of God to 
man, speaking to the human consciousness the words of eternal 
life; He personalized the truth, that absolute truth which is a 

347 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

revelation of God and from God. He knew more about God 
and the truth of being than any other man of whom history 
has given us any record, and He did more personally to demon- 
strate what God is and what He does than any other person 
whoever lived among men. 

That which was written by Esdras, "near the willow fringed 
rivers of Babylon" more than twenty-three centuries ago, still 
holds good : "As for Truth, it endureth and is always strong ; 
it liveth and conquereth forever more," Jesus Christ, who 
spake as never man spake, taught His followers that knowl- 
edge of the Truth which He had given to them will make men 
free indeed. The winds of time sweep clean the centuries, but 
they have not swept His words into oblivion. These words 
hold equally good to-day as when they were spoken nineteen 
centuries ago. 

"Truth is sure and can afford to wait our slow perception. 

Her essence is eternal and she knows the world must 

swing around to her soon or late." 

History shows Jesus to have been more spiritual than all 
other earthly personalities. He stands as the embodiment of 
God's spiritual idea; the personification of truth itself. He 
represents the indestructible man whom Spirit creates, con- 
stitutes and governs; He illustrated that blending with the 
Maker which gives man dominion over all the earth. 

The Christ-Truth independent of creed and tradition, of 
doctrine and dogma and time-honored systems; the Christ- 
truth which endureth unto all generations, comes as of yore 
the answer to the question of all questions, "What is Truth?" 
But until a materiahstic age is ready to welcome its approach 
it knocks in vain. Until ready to change the standpoints of 
life and intelligence from a material to a spiritual basis, this 
age, Hke Pilate of old, will receive no adequate answer to this 
question of questions; mankind will still fail to gain the per- 

348 



THE INFINITE END 

feet life or control of Soul over sense; or to receive pure 
Christianity or Truth in its divine Principle. This change of 
standpoint must needs be the climax wherein harmonious and 
immortal man v^^ill be fully understood and his capacities 
shown; wherein the truth, the absolute truth, the full, exact 
and scientific knowledge of God which Jesus taught will make 
men free will become the possession of the race. 

The Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century was 
the result of a revolt against a grievous condition of politics, 
religious profligacy, duplicity and immorality, in which the tone 
of manners and morals were corrupt, dissolute and a disgrace 
to Christian civilization. The remedy for those conditions was 
found in a return to the purity of the Christianity of the New 
Testament. 

In this present century of outlived dogmas and creeds, of 
tottering ecclesiasticism and religious declension on the part of 
organized Christianity; in this age when the churches have 
dissipated their energies in senseless competitions, sectarian- 
rivalries, and profitless schisms which have split into yet more 
futile parts; when church debts accumulate and parishes 
dwindle; when pastors are ill paid and ill fed; in the face of 
destitution, depravity and utter shameless godlessness; con- 
fronted as we are by such invincible evidences of failure as 
are the miseries, the sins, the poverty, the moral heathenisms 
and civilized savageries of to-day, the need is no less impera- 
tive than in the days of the Reformation for a return to the 
purity of doctrine, the primitive simplicity and successful 
ministry of the early Christian church. 

The Reformation of the sixteenth century had its reformer, 
its great leader in the person of Martin Luther. Christian 
Science, the epoch-making event of the nineteenth century, 
which has inaugurated and is leading one of the greatest re- 
ligious reformations in history, has had its reformer and in- 
domitable leader in Mary Baker Eddy. It is exempHfying the 

349 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

simplicity and the unity of faith and practice of primitive 
Christianity; it is restoring the heaHng efficacy of the Truth 
which Jesus taught and demonstrated. His great Hfe work 
was not confined to the three years of His personal ministry in 
Judea. 

"Its purpose extends through time and touches universal 
humanity. Its Principle is infinite, extending beyond the pale 
of a single period or a limited following, and as time moves on 
the healing elements of pure Christianity will be fairly dealt 
with, sought and taught and will glow in all the grandeur of 
universal goodness."^ 

Christian Science places especial emphasis upon the first 
great commandment of the moral law, given from Mount 
Sinai, "Thou shall have no other gods before me." This com- 
mandment demonstrates Christian Science, inculcating as it 
does the tri-unity of God, Spirit, Mind. Spiritually inter- 
preted, it signifies that man shall have no other spirit or mind 
but God, eternal Good, and that all men shall have that one 
Mind. 

"The divine Principle of that first and greatest command- 
ment of all bases the science of being whereby man demon- 
strates health, holiness and life eternal. One infinite God, good, 
unifies men and nations ; constitutes the brotherhood of man ; 
ends wars ; fulfils the Scripture, 'Love thy neighbor as thy- 
self ; annihilates pagan and Christian idolatry — whatever is 
wrong in social, civil, criminal, political and religious codes ; 
equalizes the sexes ; annuls the curse on man, and leaves 
nothing that can sin, suifer, be punished or destroyed."^ 

The Outcome. 

What, then, is to be the outcome? This inquiry is one 
which we raised at the outset: it is one with which we close 



^Science and Health, pages 328-329. 
^Science and Health, page 340. 

350 



THE INFINITE END 

this volume. The answer is writ large upon the face of the 
foregoing facts and considerations; so large that he who runs 
may read. It points unmistakably to the fulfilment of two 
notable predictions made by the founder of Christian Science 
not many years ago. 

The first prediction illustrates her profound faith in the 
ultimate triumph of Christ's kingdom on earth. 

"The impersonation of the spiritual idea had a brief his- 
tory in the earthly life of our Master: but, 'of His kingdom 
there shall be no end,' for Christ, God's idea, will eventually 
rule all nations and peoples — imperatively, absolutely, finally, 
with Divine Science." 

The second is no less impressive in its expression of her su- 
preme confidence in the spread of Christian Science. 

*Tf the lives of Christian Scientists attest their fidelity to 
Truth, I predict that in the Twentieth Century, every Christian 
church in the land, and a few in far-off lands, will approximate 
the understanding of Christian Science sufficiently to heal the 
sick in His name ; Christ will give to humanity His new name 
and Christendom will be classified as Christian Science." 



And unto Christ, Truth, Christian Science in these latter 
days upbuilds a temple dedicated to the one, only, true God 
who hath ordained the way of salvation for all. Wrought in 
the granite of the everlasting hills, lofty domed, and crowned 
with the emblem of light and love, it symbolizes the religious 
faith of many thousands and commemorates their high pur- 
pose to establish a church that shall be built upon the Rock, 
Christ Jesus, and that shall restore to the world primitive 
Christianity and its lost element of healing. 

It beckons to those who are near and to those afar off, that 
they may see, and seeing, may gather in a holy Christian service 
that shall be acceptable to God and bear witness to the abund- 
ance of salvation through His divine Christ. 

Surely it shall be, as in the vision of the Revelator, that a 

351 



ALTAR FIRES RELIGHTED 

spiritual temple of Truth shall be raised in the earth, fair and 
royal, whose maker and builder is God; a temple that hath 
foundations of precious stones and gates of pearl; that shall 
stand in glorious splendor within and without; its walls of 
adamant and crumbling not ; a temple whereof Truth is grained 
in the corner-stone; Love joining its every arch and cementing 
the foundation of its every pillar; a house not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens, in which the living church of 
God may worship. The beams of the sun of righteousness 
illume with morn its lofty dome of drossless gold ; beheld afar 
'tis a voice of wooing to the world : 

"Come ye up to Jerusalem, ye tribes of men — haste ye to 
gather at the shrine of Truth. Let the nations tarry not and 
let the uttermost isles of the sea make journey to the city of 
light. There evil entereth not, neither sickness nor sorrow; 
neither hath death dominion over man, for all rewards of right- 
eousness are with the sons of God." 

"For, behold, the tabernacle of God is Avith men, and He 
will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God 
Himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall 
wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no 
more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be 
any more pain ; 

for the former things are passed away." 



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